Becoming Your Best Version28 Nov 2025

A Conversation with Qin Sun Stubis, Survivor and Author of "Once Our Lives"

Qin (“Ching”) Sun Stubis was born in the rubble of a Shanghai shantytown during the Great Chinese Famine, which killed some 50 million people. She was left alone in her crude bamboo crib for two years while her parents worked to scrape together a few coins each day for their daily handful of rice. Growing up, she and her sisters were at first ignored by the rest of the family for being “worthless” girls, and later shunned as political pariahs when their honest father was imprisoned for speaking out against the injustice he saw around them.

Despite extreme poverty, Qin pulled herself up by reading forbidden books and winning admission to one of China’s most prestigious universities, graduating with a degree in English and English Literature. With the help of a U.S. Senator, she emigrated to the United States to further her studies and has sought through her writing to build greater understanding between Eastern and Western cultures and underscore our common hopes, dreams and struggles.

Qin is a writer, newspaper columnist, and author of the award-winning book, Once Our Lives, the true story of four generations of Chinese women who struggle to survive war, revolution, and the seemingly unshakeable power of an ancient Chinese superstition. The book, which has been named a best read by Ms. Magazine, Glamour Magazine UK, GRAND Magazine and Readers’ Favorite, and won the Nellie Bly Award for Journalistic Non-Fiction, takes the reader on an exotic journey filled with real stories of luxurious banquets, lost jewels, babies sold in opium dens, kidnappings by pirates and political persecution – seen through the eyes of a man for whom the truth would spell disaster and a lonely, beautiful girl with three identities.

For the past 17 years, she has been a newspaper columnist, exploring the rich legacy of Asian culture and the common links we all share. She has just completed a novel and also writes poems, essays, short stories and original Chinese tall tales inspired by traditional Asian themes. Qin has published more than 200 works in such media as The New York Times, USA Today, The Santa Monica Star, GRAND Magazine, Lotus Magazine, Paper Dragon and Mochi Magazine, and speaks to audiences around the world about writing and the need to strengthen the bonds of understanding and humanity that connect us all. You can find out more about her and her book, Once Our Lives, at www.QinSunStubis.com.

Learn more and follow Qin:

o Website: www.QinSunStubis.com

o Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/qinsun.stubis

o Facebook Fan Page "Once Our Lives by Qin Sun Stubis"

o Instagram: instagram.com/qinstubis/

o Goodreads: goodreads.com/author/show/22904309.Qin_Sun_Stubis

o LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/qin-sun-stubis-5977011a/

o YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVLYagaq5R6LPHGn3fsxOVA

o Amazon: Amazon.com: Once Our Lives: Life, Death and Love in the Middle Kingdom (60) (GWE Creative Non-Fiction): 9781771837965: Sun Stubis, Qin: Books

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