Join MWRF for ONE
We’re ONE MetroWest. And we’re going to read ONE author … together!
ONE: MetroWest Reads 2022
The selection for ONE: MetroWest Reads in 2022 is Thank You, Mr. Nixon by Gish Jen.
Let’s Read…
Together!
Thank You, Mr. Nixon
by Gish Jen
We’re ONE MetroWest…and we’re reading ONE book…together! MetroWest Readers Fest is once again hosting a regional community-wide read as part of MWRF 2022! The title for 2022 is Thank You, Mr. Nixon by Gish Jen. In this collection of 11 linked short stories, acclaimed author Jen “embarks on a fictional journey through U.S.-China relations, capturing the excitement of a world on the brink of tectonic change.” Thank You, Mr. Nixon was named the #1 Recommendation for AAPI Month by Oprah Daily, an Amazon Editor’s Pick for Best Literature & Fiction, and was called “marvelous” by Claire Oshetsky in the New York Times.
Gish Jen has published short work in the New Yorker, the Atlantic, and dozens of other periodicals, anthologies and textbooks. Her work has been chosen for The Best American Short Stories five times, including The Best American Short Stories of the Century, edited by John Updike. Nominated for a National Book Critics’ Circle Award, her work was featured in a PBS American Masters’ special on the American novel and is widely taught.
Jen is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has been awarded a Lannan Literary Award for Fiction, a Guggenheim fellowship, a Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study fellowship, and a Mildred and Harold Strauss Living; she has also delivered the William E. Massey, Sr. Lectures in the History of American Civilization at Harvard University. She is currently a Visiting Professor at Harvard.
Thank You, Mr. Nixon is her ninth book.
Resources
Read about how China has influenced Jen’s work, the idea of “independence” versus “interdependence,” as well as how fiction can help us understand history.
“How Covid Got Gish Jen Thinking About China,” The New York Times
The 2003 series Becoming American: Personal Journeys was a three-part series of conversations with five prominent Chinese Americans who have contributed greatly to American life. In Bill’s conversation with writer Gish Jen, they discussed her ethnic identity and her Irish American husband’s identity, and what it means to Chinese American or Irish American.
Becoming American: Personal Journeys (Interview with Bill Moyers)
“Updike, Remembered,” The New Republic
Gish Jen writes about being selected as John Updike's self-selected "successor."
ONE MetroWest Reads : 2021
In 2021, the selections for ONE: MetroWest Reads were
White Space: Essays on Culture, Race, & Writing and Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From by Jennifer De Leon.
Thank You, Mr. Nixon Discussion Questions
Feel free to use these questions as a springboard for discussing Gish Jen’s latest short story collection.
Let’s Read…
Together!
We are thrilled to be hosting the first-ever regional community-wide read, and we’re calling it ONE. The signature title for this initiative is White Space: Essays on Culture, Race, and Writing by Jennifer De Leon. Published in March 2021 and the recipient of the Juniper Prize for Creative Nonfiction, White Space takes readers from Guatemala, to Connecticut College, to the Bay Area, to right here in MetroWest: Framingham, where De Leon was raised and now teaches at Framingham State University. De Leon is also the author of the YA novel Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From, which Celeste Ng calls “A funny, perceptive, and much-needed book telling a much-needed story.”
Need a copy of White Space or Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From?
We are thrilled to announce The Silver Unicorn Bookstore in West Acton as the “preferred bookseller” for MetroWest Readers Fest! Copies of White Space: Essays on Culture, Race, & Writing and Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From bought via Silver Unicorn will be signed by Jennifer De Leon. The button below will take you directly to a link to purchase Jenn’s books. (You may opt to have them shipped or you may pick them up in-person.)
Resources & Activities.
“Reading” can be so much more than just opening a book…and simply reading words. There are a lot of “entry points” to both White Space: Essays on Culture, Race, & Writing and Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From. Check out some related resources below — and keep checking back because we will keep adding!
Discussion Questions for White Space: Essays on Culture, Race, & Writing
Whether you’re reading with a group or on your own, these questions are designed to help you think about White Space and generate conversation and reflection.
Little Free Library Scavenger Hunt Bingo!
Boston Globe
“We have no control over the circumstances into which we are born.” The Boston Globe features White Space: Essays on Culture, Race, & Writing in their New England Literary News. Globe Correspondent Nina MacLaughlin writes, “With nuance and heart, De Leon writes of what can’t be spoken, what goes unspoken, and what lives so vitally, pulsing away, between the lines.”
We Need Diverse Books: How to Become a Writer (of Color) Essay by Jenn
“There is a tremendous sense of power in reclaiming a story that doesn’t include you. It took me years and years—and many, many more drafts—to begin to understand that what I originally saw as weaknesses in my writing life and material were actually strengths.”
Hard Candy & Fruit Snacks Podcast
We encourage you to download Hard Candy & Fruit Snacks, a podcast about race created by two friends who are graduates of Wayland High School — one a METCO student from Dorchester, and one from Wayland.
What’s the tie-in? Jenn’s YA novel DON’T ASK ME WHERE I’M FROM is set in a suburban Boston town with a METCO program. (It is an amalgam of different places, and Jenn recently shared that she shadowed students at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, among other places, for research.) Jenn grew up in Framingham, and although she was not a METCO student, writes about “code switching” and having her feet in different worlds in her nonfiction book WHITE SPACE: ESSAYS ON CULTURE, RACE, & WRITING.
Creating Space for Immigration and Race: A Conversation with Jennifer De Leon in the Los Angeles Review of Books
“[Jennifer De Leon’s] latest writings mirror each other. In fiction, she portrays a Guatemalan American girl whose life is upended when her father is deported and she is assigned to an elite school. In nonfiction, she grapples with the white spaces she inhabits, with belonging and otherness, and the separation of families caused by dysfunctional immigration policies. In clear-eyed honesty and humor, she navigates the issues of immigration and race and speaks to our times.”
My Mother, Who Could Have Been So Many Things. WBUR Cognoscenti Essay by Jenn
“She grew up in Guatemala City. I grew up in a Boston suburb. She could not finish high school in Guatemala. I am a college professor. She hates tests. I do, too.”