By A.H. Kim
May is Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month as well as Mental Health Awareness Month, and I can think of no better way to kickstart the month than by reading Michelle Yang’s riveting memoir, Phoenix Girl: How a Fat Asian with Bipolar Found Love.
At turns harrowing and heartwarming, Phoenix Girl documents Michelle’s family’s journey from Chinatown in Incheon, South Korea to various stops in the U.S. before settling in Phoenix, Arizona. Phoenix Girl also takes us on Michelle’s personal journey from Asian American overachiever and dutiful daughter through a bipolar 1 diagnosis during college and finally (spoiler alert!) to the beloved wife and mother she is today.
A.H. Kim: Congratulations on the launch of Phoenix Girl. You’ve been a writer for some time, publishing in such major outlets as InStyle, Reader’s Digest, and Parents, but this is your first book. Where did you get the inspiration to write a memoir?
Michelle Yang: Thank you, Ann! I wrote Phoenix Girl from a place of advocacy. When I was first diagnosed with bipolar 1 at age 20 in 2001, I was terrified. I worried that everything I had worked so hard for—my perfect grades, my scholarship—didn’t matter anymore. I worried that with this label of mental illness, I would have no future. It was very difficult to hold on to hope and to keep on fighting. I turned to the library to try to find a book about someone who was in my shoes. Back then I couldn’t find anything that I could relate to, especially from someone from an immigrant or BIPOC background. I felt very alone. I wrote this book in hopes of making others feel less alone now that I’ve lived through those very tough years.
AHK: I know it’s been a long and sometimes bumpy road from manuscript to publication. How did you find your way to Fifth Avenue Press, and how has the experience been?
MY: Like many fellow authors, my journey has been tough. After querying over 100 literary agents, I was thrilled when I received two offers of representation in late 2021. I signed with the more senior and more established of the two agents and we went on submission in early 2022. We submitted my manuscript with the proposal widely, to over fifty publishers, with no edits at all to my materials along the way. (In retrospect, I wish we hadn’t submitted so widely without edits between rounds—my agent didn’t believe my materials needed edits.) Though I received some nibbles and a lot of positive feedback, the response I heard the most was, “We have a very similar book coming out,” which was very frustrating since this is my memoir, my life story. After a year of no success in submission, my then agent told me she was out of ideas.
Any author who has been in this process knows that the submission phase can feel like slowly bleeding to death. After this, I signed with a new agent, whom I adore, but we couldn’t send out my manuscript on submission again since all the major publishers had already seen it. My agent advised that we shelve the memoir while I work on new projects, but I couldn’t do that. I wrote Phoenix Girl because I’m a mental health advocate and it is my calling. So I explored smaller publishers and submitted my manuscript to Fifth Avenue Press, which is a local non-profit press that is a part of Ann Arbor District Library. They accepted my manuscript when I was at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference in March of 2023, and it has been so special to work with librarians that I have the utmost respect for on this journey to publication.
Libraries play a significant role throughout my life. I call them my third parent, the American one, and even have a chapter about my childhood library being my sanctuary, so publishing with Fifth Avenue Press felt like it was meant to be.
I sincerely appreciate the investment Fifth Avenue Press has made in my work and all the support they’ve provided, including hiring a dream team developmental editor, Hannah Beresford, and cover designer, Yvonne Chan. Also truly unique is that I am able to retain all my rights.
AHK: As a writer, you know better than most that words matter. Your subtitle “How a Fat Asian with Bipolar Found Love” feels especially meaningful. What are you trying to convey with that subtitle?
MY: Well, it’s essentially my memoir in eight words. I wanted my subtitle to quickly convey to readers that I self-identify as fat and that I am a stigma-fighter against bipolar. Finally, with the “Found Love” part of the subtitle, I wanted the readers to know that this story is optimistic and has a happy ending.
AHK: You recently posted about an Asian American student who heard you speak at the University of Michigan. She sent you a note saying, “you discussed how blaming our traumas on our culture can make us hate our culture which ultimately makes us hate ourselves because our culture is who we are.” That statement made a big impression on the student, as it did on me.
Was there ever a time when you blamed your traumas on your culture, and how did you work your way to this remarkable place of acceptance and insight?
MY: One of my favorite quotes is, “Heal. So we don’t have another generation of trauma passing itself off as culture,” by Dr. Thema Bryant, which is what I shared during that talk. I advocate for this healing every chance I get so that we can separate trauma from culture. Intergenerational trauma is not culture. I reject the idea that any kind of trauma is culture. We should be freed from it. We should be able to love our culture and ourselves without being forced to endure the trauma too.
I arrived at this philosophy after years of therapy and self work. I grew up with the conditioning that corporal punishment and domestic abuse was okay for me because I am Chinese. That this kind of abuse was cultural and I should accept it. This was a message I received from society, my educators, and most of all from my parents. I was only able to reach a higher level of self-love and empowerment after I rejected this.
AHK: The brilliant writer E.J. Koh (The Liberators, The Magical Language of Others) called you “the foremost advocate of Asian American identity, feminism, and mental health of our time” and said Phoenix Girl “reveals the root of human grief and illuminates what transformations lie within each of us. Out of startling truths, her memoir comes as a gift.”
Wow, that’s a dream endorsement! I know your book is just coming out today, but what have been the big highlights of the author experience so far?
MY: Because I began writing in order to fight stigma against bipolar disorder, I identify as a mental health advocate first. I’m so honored by E.J. Koh’s endorsement. Getting that endorsement itself has been a highlight of my author experience so far, along with receiving endorsements from other heroes of mine, such as Grace Talusan, Ellen Forney, and Grace M. Cho.
I’m not sure if “highlights” would be the right term, but I never imagined I would get the opportunities that I’ve gotten, such as writing for and being featured on NBC News, on NPR podcasts, and more. I never thought I would have my very first published essay in the Huffington Post go viral and be the subject of a Twitter war, with literary giants such as Roxane Gay, Alexander Chee, and Celeste Ng coming to my defense, but it happened. I never thought I would be interviewing celebrities for entertainment pieces as a freelance writer, nor did I ever imagine I would become an editor for InStyle, but I got to do all those things, in the process of trying to get my book published.
AHK: You have a demanding day job in addition to being a writer, speaker, and mental health advocate. And of course, you are also a wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, and community builder. Do you have any tips for aspiring writers who struggle to find time to write?
MY: I firmly believe that you can’t do it all and that self-care is the most important. Rest is essential to be able to keep working, creating, and being present for yourself and your loved ones. Over a year ago, I went down to 80% assignment at my job so that I could dedicate one day a week to my writing. Before that, I was feeling very overextended. Let’s be honest, I still feel overextended, but I’m doing the best I can and am trying to take it slow and one thing at a time.
AHK: Starting with your launch event at Literati Bookstore in Ann Arbor, you’ll be touring the country to promote Phoenix Girl. I know you picked the locations intentionally. What are the book tour dates and locations, and what significance do they have to your life?
MY: Thanks! All are places I found love. All are homecomings.
I’ll be at the Flinn Foundation in Phoenix, Arizona, on May 13th, and then at the Martha Cooper Library on May 14th in Tucson. I grew up in Phoenix and then went to college in Tucson, so both are very significant for my book. I also have an event at Third Place Books in Seattle, Washington, in conversation with Ellen Forney on June 24. I moved to Seattle for grad school and spent a big chunk of my life there, so it is a very meaningful location as well.
AHK: Thanks for taking the time to talk about Phoenix Girl. I’m so excited for the release and feel confident it will save lives.
A.H. Kim (Ann) was born in Seoul, South Korea and immigrated to the U.S. as a young child. Ann was educated at Harvard College and Berkeley Law School and practiced corporate law for many years in San Francisco before retiring to Ann Arbor. Ann is the author of two novels: A Good Family, which was inspired by her experience supporting her brother and nieces while her sister-in-law served time in Alderson Women’s Prison, and Relative Strangers, a contemporary retelling of Jane Austen’s beloved classic Sense and Sensibility.