Sharing That Joyful Awe of Nourishment

The Body, Brain, and Books: Eleven Questions with novelist and poet Jane Wong

Welcome to another edition of The Body, Brain, & Books. If you enjoy reading these quick, insightful interviews brimming with wisdom and hope, please subscribe to Beyond!

Photo @ Gritchelle Fallesgon

1. What are you reading now?

I’m reading Between Two Moons by Aisha Abdel Gawad, Korean American: Food that Tastes Like Home by Eric Kim, I’m the Most Dangerous Thing by Candace Williams, The Kingdom of Surfaces by Sally Wen Mao, and Handbuilt: A Modern Potter’s Guide to Handbuilding by Lilly Maetzig. I really love to read across genres and disciplines.

2. What are your most beloved books from your youth? Did you ever hide any from your parents?

I was a Babysitter’s Club fan growing up – definitely obsessed with Claudia Kish and her style. I was a public library kid and took like 30 books home every week! My mom helped me lug those giant tote bags of books home from the library. Honestly, I was a little frustrated that there weren’t that many books by authors who looked like me. I knew that from a young age that I wanted to be a writer – and even wrote little stories and slipped them into books.

3. What’s your favorite book to reread? Any that helped you through a dark time? 

I return most often to poems by Lucille Clifton. Clifton’s words really speak to the confluence of grief, tenderness, rage, community, and beauty. From “new bones”: “worlds buzz over us like bees/we be splendid in new bones.”

4. What’s an article of clothing that makes you feel most like you?

Interesting enough, wearing my mother’s clothes makes me feel like me. I’m wearing a purple floral minidress of hers as I’m typing this. My mother’s clothing is so central to how she expresses herself. I write a lot about my mom's fashion in Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City. Her fashion was her way of showing off her personality, especially coming from Maoist China. From the chapter "The Thief": "Lacking English skills, she expressed herself through her clothes. She delighted in every cuff, seam, color, texture, bead, cut, weight, movement. And so I’d find leather gloves, pearl-studded sweaters, oversized silk shirts, flocked velvet leggings, off-shoulder floral dresses, confetti bodysuits—all with their sale tags still on—hidden in the strangest places: under the always-foggy fish tank, inside a large vase, shoved under the sofa, tucked away in a pantry by the dried tofu skin… Growing up, I was convinced there was an outfit for everything.” I wear a lot of her clothes from the ‘80s and ‘90s. We both have matching pizza baseball hats.

5. What’s the best piece of wisdom you've encountered recently?

To cherish the deep friendships you have and to be open to new ones too. My memoir is kind of a love song to my mom, who gives me all these snippets of wisdom!

6. Tell me about any special relationship you’ve had with an animal, domestic or wild?

Once, I saw a bobcat take down a mouse right in front of me, while I was trying to write a poem. This is a poem about that moment.

And that bobcat was staring at me like: “what are you waiting for? Write!” I firmly believe animals know things we don’t.

7. What's one thing you are happy worked out differently than you expected?

I actually began as a fiction writer and my journey to poetry was pretty unexpected… but I’m so thrilled to have opened those bewildering avenues of poetry. I love what lyricism can do. How a single line break can carry so much emotional weight. Because I fell in love with poetry, I came back to prose (via nonfiction for now, but fiction soon) with a deep desire to not just tell a story, but to feel through it with swirling synesthesia.

8. Singing in the shower or dancing in the kitchen? Or another favorite way your body expresses itself?

Eating! Making a happy dance when I eat something really delicious and surprising. And specifically eating with beloveds so we can share that joyful awe of nourishment. 

9. What are your hopes for yourself?

I hope for ease, tenderness, and continual growth.

10. What’s a kindness that changed your life?

Friendship! I also write about friendship in my memoir, inspired by a passage from bell hooks where she speaks about platonic love as a model for intimate, romantic love. I am gifted with incredibly kind friends who remind me each day to love myself. It’s life-changing to have such strong relationships over many years. I really believe in friendship and cultivating beloveds near and far – people you can be fullest self with. Your messy self, your goofy self, your nerdy self… all the selves!

11. What’s a guiding force in your life?

Guiding forces: my mom, sharing meals, everyday beauty, laughter, curiosity, teaching/learning, bodies of water, the sweetness of fruit.

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Jane Wong is the author of the debut memoir Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City (Tin House, 2023). She also wrote two poetry collections: How to Not Be Afraid of Everything (Alice James, 2021) and Overpour (Action Books, 2016). A Kundiman fellow, she is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and fellowships and residencies from the U.S. Fulbright Program, Harvard's Woodberry Poetry Room, Artist Trust, Hedgebrook, UCross, Loghaven, and others. She grew up in a take-out restaurant on the Jersey shore and is an Associate Professor at Western Washington University.

Meet me in the comment section

What role does friendship play in your wellbeing? Do you believe animals know things we don’t - if yes, what do they know? What’s your take on lyricism? Is there a poem you find yourself returning to like a prayer?

Tell me all about it.