Vanessa Hua
Author photo: Andria Lo
Vanessa Hua is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and the author of A River of Stars and Deceit and Other Possibilities. A National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow, she has also received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, and a Steinbeck Fellowship in Creative Writing, as well as awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Asian American Journalists Association, among others. She teaches at the Writers’ Grotto, Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, and elsewhere.
Twitter: @Vanessa_Hua
Instagram: @Mononoke97
Do you listen to music while you write?
I listen to ambient electronic music: Tycho, Polo and Pan, Boards of Canada, Brian Eno. Lyrics in English can be distracting.
Favorite non-reading activity?
Swimming! I dearly miss it in the pandemic. Exercise is key to my creative practice. It's when I'm away from my computer that solutions to narrative dilemmas bubble up from my unconsciousness.
What piece of clothing tells the most interesting story about your life?
In my author photo, I'm wearing a family heirloom: an Art Deco sapphire and moonstone necklace that my grandfather—after studying at the Royal Naval Academy in Greenwich, England and sailing back to China in the early 1930s—purchased in Ceylon, now known as Sri Lanka. I love how delicate the necklace is, the coolness of the stones against my neck, and the history it carries.
Is your go to comfort food sweet or savory? Is it something you make yourself? Does food inspire your writing?
I prefer savory breakfasts over sweet. Give me corned beef hash and breakfast burritos over pancakes and waffles anytime. In terms of comfort food, though, I'll make my grandmother's soy sauce chicken, or the homemade stock that I use in my soups. Food, to the extent it reflect culture and community, inspires my writing. I also love to try new foods, a part of the curiosity I have about the world and other people's lives.
Have you ever experienced Imposter Syndrome?
Of course--all the time! But as the daughter of Chinese immigrants, I've long believed you have to fake it until you "make it." With each professional goal you might attain, there's always something else, something more. What helps is being in a community of writers and understanding that failure is a part of the writer's life, then, now and always.
