Slow Stories19 Aug 2024

Amy Lin — "Grief is a problem of narrative."

What does it mean to grieve? What does it look and feel like? Why is it still so hard for us to understand? These are just a few questions Amy Lin tackles in her astounding memoir Here After. In a series of crystalline vignettes, Amy recounts the unexpected death of her husband Kurtis, her subsequent medical crisis—and the winding journey to live after inconceivable loss.

In many ways, Here After is a story of falling—in love, apart, out of time. It's a story that alerts us to our hearts and heartbreaks. It's a story that asks the big, unanswerable questions, but perhaps most poignantly, it asks readers to be here—to bear witness. As Amy writes in the book: "I do not say: Everyone is so afraid of grief, and this fear is dangerous to the grieving. I do not tell him the painful lesson I am learning: Enduring the thing itself—he is not coming back—is unbearable but denying it is worse, is an even greater, even more insidious, threat to living, if that is what you want to do."

In this interview, Amy shared more about the value of seriousness in life, her thoughts on slow storytelling and creativity, and what time means to her now. This episode also opens with a story from Julie Chavez.

—

Episode Transcript: https://slowstoriespodcast.com/amy-lin/

Follow Slow Stories on Substack: https://slowstories.substack.com/

Purchase Here After: https://bookshop.org/p/books/here-after-a-memoir-amy-lin/20214421?ean=9781958506325/

Purchase Everyone But Myself: https://bookshop.org/p/books/everyone-but-myself-a-memoir-julie-chavez/19726158?ean=9781958506059/

Follow Amy: @literaryamy

Follow Julie: @juliewriteswords

Follow Rachel: @rachelschwartzmann

Pre-order SLOWING: https://bookshop.org/p/books/slowing-discover-wonder-beauty-and-creativity-through-slow-living-rachel-schwartzmann/21201888?ean=9781797223759

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(61)

Kate Baer — "People are much more willing to help than we think."

Have you seen the moon? What do you want from this provincial life? How much risk can we allow in this careless, rotten world? These are just a few of the many questions readers will encounter in cele...

18 Des 202543min

Maggie Smith — "You're a human before you're an artist."

What ingredients are necessary to write? Where does a story begin and end? Why is the blank page both endlessly exciting and daunting? For renowned poet, memoirist, and educator Maggie Smith, these qu...

19 Mai 20251h 3min

Pico Iyer — "Words are only as rich as the silence that underlies them."

What moves you—and where? Who are you when everything else falls away? What can you find in stillness? Renowned travel writer and speaker Pico Iyer has pursued these questions throughout his storied c...

15 Apr 20251h 10min

Caleb Femi — "Poetry never leaves you."

Think about the last time you felt connected to night: the moon’s luminous glow, the rhythms of a house party, the pulsing of the music, the heartbeat of a community. Caleb Femi’s modern epic, The Wic...

16 Mar 202550min

Gloria Noto — "Awareness is a reflection."

What is the role of beauty in this day and age? For some, it’s an aesthetic pursuit; for others, it’s simply a state of mind. If we’re talking about the global, multibillion-dollar industry, it’s some...

17 Feb 202554min

Ayşegül Savaş — "We're always in the midst of it."

What makes a day? Is it the routine of brewing morning coffee or walking through the neighborhood? Is it more meaningful if it's spent in the company of others? And if we do find ourselves alone, what...

9 Des 202459min

Lauren Elkin — "To me, it's all interesting."

What does it mean to be faithful? This question is central to Lauren Elkin's debut novel, Scaffolding, which follows the trials and tribulations of two couples across time and space, occupying the sam...

26 Nov 20241h 9min

Rachel Schwartzmann — "Was it a beginning, or had the story been writing itself all along?"

A note from Slow Stories' own Rachel Schwartzmann regarding her new book, SLOWING! — Order SLOWING: https://lnk.to/Slowing/ Subscribe to Slow Stories on Substack: https://slowstories.substack.com/ R...

30 Sep 20245min