Amy Wang's Blog
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Oct.21.2010
The teacher was handing out yet another stack of papers. But it wasn' t more homework. I felt my pulse race as I read the sheet: a writing contest. A creative writing contest, sponsored by a local organization I'd never heard of.
I took the sheet home and pondered what I'd write. I was in the...
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Aug.29.2010
This blog entry was inspired by the "comeback" theme recently announced for the first issue of Longshot magazine (http://longshotmag.com/).
The answering machine light was red when we returned from our weekend at the coast. I heard my mother’s voice. She sounded almost choked; she was...
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Jul.28.2010
It would be easy to surmise that I can't really be remembering this, that this is a false memory triggered by a photograph.
After all, I was just 2 when the photograph was taken, according to the year stamped in the margin. The stamp doesn't include the month or day, so I may not even have turned...
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Jul.24.2010
There it is again, that pain on the left side of my chest. By now I've grown used to it; I've pretty much decided it has to be anxiety.
Or acid reflux.
Anxiety would be the more logical diagnosis. It comes hard-wired into my genome. My DNA is Chinese - it has experienced millennia of famine,...
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Jul.23.2010
We stood at the bottom of the stairs I'd run up and down so many times and took in their blackness. They'd been carpeted, in beige; now they were charred and looked as if they might collapse at any moment.
"It's OK," said my friend. "We've already been on them." She started up....
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Jul.15.2010
9:15. We're doing better than yesterday; we're out of the house five minutes earlier. I back out of the driveway into the street, put the car into first gear and start up the hill. I see someone coming down the hill along the sidewalk that leads past our house. It's the same woman I saw yesterday,...
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Jun.16.2010
Dear Sir:
The book my father put in my hands was heavy, musty, forbidding. The type was small. There were no pictures.
The author, my father the librarian told me, was a man named Charles Dickens, from a country called England. Dickens was a classic, and now that I had begun to read, my father...
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Mar.17.2010
He was due in early April; he arrived in late March, on the day after the vernal equinox, and thus conjoined forever for me the rebirth of the Earth with his own birth.
From the moment we confirmed his existence, we knew he would be our lastborn child; my husband was turning 40 in the fall, a sure...
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Mar.03.2010
I'd chosen the apartment tower purely for its location: It was right on Rittenhouse Square, probably the most prestigious address in Philadelphia. I'd never thought I could afford a place there. But a newspaper ad had revealed a secret: the lower the floor, the lower the rent. I scored a studio on...
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Feb.10.2010
Freedom is supposed to be one of the ultimate American traits, right?
It says so, right there in the Declaration of Indepedence, right? It's one of the three pursuits all true Americans dedicate themselves to, right? They just call it "liberty" instead of "freedom."
(Pause while...
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Feb.02.2010
Back in January 2007 my fondness for lists drove me to start a list of the books I was reading. I kept it up for nearly two years, then abandoned it. I'm picking it up again now for the first time since January 2009, rather unsure as to what purpose I thought a reading list would serve, other than...
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About Amy
I've been an editor for 20 years and a writer for about 30 years. I started to take writing seriously after I won $10 in a creative writing contest in my town. OK, I won the $10 because NO ONE ELSE entered - but still, it was a revelation to discover that...