Belle Yang's Blog
RSS
Apr.27.2010
Condensing my book from prose to graphic panels was the act of making poetry. Even as the book stands now, I see where I could have compacted more without losing meaning or texture, making the whole more powerful in its succinctness.
There is a particular sensitivity and emotional...
Continue Reading »
2 comments
Apr.26.2010
Of all the visual storytelling media, graphic novels offer the most creative control. Animation and film require teams of people, whereas graphic novelists can be created by one or two individuals. In my case, being an only child, I love making friends, but prefer working on a big project...
Continue Reading »
Apr.26.2010
By 1969, the author John Updike, who had entertained ideas of becoming a cartoonist in his youth, addressed the Bristol Literary Society, on "the death of the novel". Updike offered examples of new areas of exploration for novelists, declaring "I see no intrinsic reason...
Continue Reading »
7 comments
Feb.15.2010
Starred Review
"Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale" WW Norton, May10, 2010
East meets West in this occasionally playful yet profoundly moving graphic memoir.
Though she has drawn from her life in her popular children's books (Foo, the Flying Frog of Washtub Pond, 2009, etc.), Yang has...
Continue Reading »
3 comments
Dec.26.2009
If you do receive something from me in the mail, it will be a handwritten letter, not a Christmas card. I like making hen scratchings on laid paper. I am at my happiest, "in the zone" as they say, when I make inky lines, hatchings, dots on paper. The marks are my way of making visual...
Continue Reading »
8 comments
Nov.25.2009
I've known parent-child relationship. I've sated on the love of a man for a woman. I've experienced the regard of a mentor for a student. Rarest of all is the physician-patient communion. With a true healer, the unity goes beyond the mere verbal, even beyond touch. It is nearest to...
Continue Reading »
15 comments
Nov.24.2009
Yesterday, Mother and I finally caught sight of the artist (what else could you call him?) in action, a raw-boned man with a paunch wearing a baseball cap, dragging a shovel behind him on the deserted beach. (It was as rare and wonderful a sighting as a hummingbird weaving its sock nest...
Continue Reading »
9 comments
Nov.10.2009
I’ve been posting in Red Room since the day this fabulous community went live, but this may be the most important blog I have written.
San Francisco Activist, writer, lyricist, musician Deborah Grabien is a member of our Red Room Community, who has worked tirelessly to help others in sickness. Now...
Continue Reading »
34 comments
Sep.16.2009
I will fight for the poor and the needy but not for the insurance companies nor PhRMA. I will do what I can to improve on Baucus' "ripoff."Joy Skeel Medical Ethicist
The Gang of Six Bill is a total wash and conceeds to the Health Insurance Industry. The far right fringe has been vocal,...
Continue Reading »
9 comments
Sep.13.2009
When my Chinese-American friends come down from the Bay Area for a visit to the Central Coast, they say, We'd like to stop by and say, hi, to your parents. It truly warms the cockles of my heart. Only my Chinese-American friends think to do this.
When I was invited to speak at the...
Continue Reading »
12 comments
Sep.03.2009
Since my last post in April specific to my graphic novel, I've been working steadily with my editor at WW Norton to reinforce the flow of the story. It involved a lot of old-fashioned cutting and pasting with X-acto knife and rubber cement. I moved comics panel around, drew new ones to fill in...
Continue Reading »
21 comments
Sep.02.2009
Here is a link to a Bigthink.com video interview of my editor, Alane Salierno Mason, senior editor at WW Norton and Company. She diagnoses literature in translation and how big publishers have dealt a blow to foreign writers, attempting to publish in English:
Please go to: http://bigthink.com/...
Continue Reading »
3 comments
Aug.16.2009
My father's second cousin had come to the city, and he saw a group of men standing around the vendor of bolts of blue and white cotton cloth. "This is of excellent quality and I'm lettin' them go cheap," cried the vendor to the cousin. He unloaded the bolt from his cart, throwing them...
Continue Reading »
11 comments
Aug.09.2009
I'm coming to the end of my Manchurian trilogy (the last of the three books to be published next year in graphic novel format), which I've worked on for twenty years. It is my obsession no longer, nor do I owe the unrequited ghosts of my ancestors the labor of my heart and pen.
I was obsessed this...
Continue Reading »
37 comments
Jul.20.2009
Ryoma Collia-Suzuki had sent me a link to one of his favorite painters, Miamoto Musashi, in the Chinese/Japanese ink-wash style or sumi-e in Japanese. I sent a couple of images I had painted in China in the late 80's. He was surprised by this older style of my late 20's, because the only pieces...
Continue Reading »
8 comments
About Belle
Belle Yang, subject of the PBS documentary, “My Name is Belle,” is often asked whether she is primarily a writer or a painter. Answer: "When I'm writing, I'm a writer; when I'm painting, I'm a painter." Is she a children's author or writers of adult...
Connections
Causes Belle Yang Supports
826 Valencia Street
Belle is a fan of
