I began writing these letters in August 2017, when I traveled for a year all over the world as a Watson Fellow speaking to women in unusual situations of dislocation. 

The letters have, since then, become a way for me to check in with myself — to document and witness my daily attempts to live as a writer, to learn to write while bumbling through this strange, extraordinary life.

Join me, check out the archives, and let's stay hydrated and tender, even as we are not sure where home is, where we might come upon land ~

Since the pandemic began, I have been writing a series of  "Pandemic Diaries" inspired by the Wuhuan whistleblowers and Yan Lian Ke's words below:

"If we can’t be a whistle-blower like Li Wenliang, then let us at least be someone who hears that whistle. If we can’t speak out loudly, then let us be whisperers. If we can’t be whisperers, then let us be silent people who have memories. Having experienced the start, onslaught, and spread of Covid-19, let us be the people who silently step aside when the crowd unites to sing a victory song after the battle is won—the people who have graves in their hearts, with memories etched in them; the people who remember and can someday pass on these memories to our future generations."P.S. please confirm your subscription in your email!


* The title is inspired by 1 of 12 questions Bhanu Kapil posed to Indian women in her book  The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers


JinJin Xu is a filmmaker and writer from Shanghai. Her work has appeared in The Common, The Immigrant Artist Biennial, and has been recognized by prizes from the Poetry Society of America, Southern Humanities Review, Tupelo Press, and a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. She is currently an MFA candidate at NYU, where she is a Lillian Vernon Fellow and teaches hybrid workshops. Her debut, There Is Still Singing in the Afterlife, won the inaugural Own Voices Chapbook Prize.


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THERE IS STILL SINGING IN THE AFTERLIFE (@radixmedia,2020)🎐 books editor @on_squ before: Watson Fellowship / currently: @nyucwp