Podcast appearances and mentions of lily chin

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Tonight's show is June 19th. We are all connected. We are talking with Asian and Asian American Children's book authors. PowerLeeGirls host Miko Lee talks with Chi Thai and Livia Blackburne about the power of storytelling, maternal heritage, generational trauma, and much more. Title:  We Are All Connected Show Transcripts Opening: [00:00:00] Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It's time to get on board the Apex Express.   Ayame Keane-Lee: [00:01:17] Welcome to Apex Express. Tonight's show is June 19th. We are all connected. We are talking with Asian and Asian American Children's book authors. PowerLeeGirls host Miko Lee talks with Chi Thai and Livia Blackburne about the power of storytelling, maternal heritage, generational trauma, and much more. First, we want to start by wishing everyone a happy Juneteenth, Juneteenth commemorates, an end to slavery and the emancipation of Black Americans after the Civil War. In 1865, 2 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, enslaved people in Galveston, Texas finally learned of their freedom. Juneteenth marks the day the last enslaved people learned of their freedom. Though outright slavery became illegal, the systematic oppression of African Americans continues to this day. We see that show up in almost every aspect of American culture, from the high rate of infant mortality to the over punishing of Black children in schools, to police brutality, to incarceration. We must continue to recognize the importance of championing Black lives and lifting up Black voices. We are all connected. June 19th is also an important day in Asian American history. In 1982 in Detroit, Vincent Chin was at a bar celebrating his bachelor party prior to his wedding the next day. Ronald Ebens, a white auto worker, and his stepson Michael Nitz taunted Vincent with racial epithets. They thought he was Japanese and were angry about the Japanese rise in the auto industry. When Vincent left the bar later, the two men attacked and killed Vincent with a baseball bat. He was 27 years old. Ronald Ebens never did time for this murder. Ronald Ebens is 85 years old now. Ebens not only skirted prosecution, he has used bankruptcy and homesteading laws in Nevada to avoid a wrongful death civil suit settlement. Ordered by the court in 1987 to pay $1.5 million to Chin's family, the Chin estate has received nothing. Lily Chin, Vincent's mom could have stayed silent about the racist attack on her son. Instead she spoke out. She took a courageous stance to highlight this most painful moment in her life. In doing so, she helped ignite a new generation of Asian American activists working for civil rights and social justice. We find ourselves in a new wave of activism as our communities band together to work against the injustices of the current regime. And what does this have to do with children's books? It is all connected. We highlight children's books by Asian and Asian American authors because we want our next generation of children to know and appreciate their own heritage. We want them to proudly represent who they are so that they can work in solidarity with other peoples. Our struggle is interwoven. As Grace Lee Boggs said, “History is a story not only of the past, but of the future.” Thank you for joining us on apex express. Enjoy the show.   Miko Lee: [00:04:24] First off. Let's take a listen to one of Byron Au Young's compositions called “Know Your Rights” This is part of the trilogy of the Activist Songbook. This multi-lingual rap, give steps to know what to do when ICE officers come to your door.    MUSIC   That was “Know Your Rights” performed by Jason Chu with lyrics by Aaron Jeffries and composed by Byron Au Yong Welcome, Chi Thai to Apex Express.    Chi Thai: [00:07:13] Hello. I'm really happy to be joining you, Miko.  Miko Lee: [00:07:16] I'm really happy to meet you and learn about you as an artist, as a filmmaker, as a children's book author. And I wanna first start with a personal question, which is, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you? Chi Thai: [00:07:30] Ooh, what a great question. You know what? I love being asked stuff that hasn't been asked kind of before. I mean, there's a kinda really kinda natural answer to that, which is, you know, family are my people. Of course. 100%. And certainly, you know, the reason why I'm talking to you today, you know, in regard to the, to the book, you know, it's about my family's journey. But I found, and I don't know if this is. Somewhat to do with, you know, being a child of two cultures and you know, being a child of the diaspora that you really have to kind of find your own family too. 'cause I suppose I grew up feeling, I didn't quite relate to maybe my parents in a way that, you know, you normally would if you weren't part of the diaspora. And I felt estranged from my birth country and I didn't really feel like British either a lot of the time. So in terms of like, who are my people? I've gathered those people as I've kind of grown up and it's, it's a kind of strange feeling too. I feel like it's taken me a really long to grow up and to figure out who I am. And I suppose that's why, you know, the people that I have a really, a lot of people that have come, kinda later in my life, I actually have no friends in my childhood as an example of that. I've had to kind of find these people as I've grown up, but it's taken me a long time to grow up because growing up in the UK there wasn't any literature to read about what it was like to be Asian. And British, to be a refugee and things like that. So it just took me longer and I then, as a result, it just took me longer to find my tribe. but I have it now, but it's still work in progress. That was a very convoluted answer. I'm very sorry Miko.    Miko Lee: [00:09:15] No, it wasn't. No worries. It's fine. And what legacy do you carry with you?   Chi Thai: [00:09:19] Kind of an extension to that answer, I think when you're an artist, practicing your voice, figuring out your voice, can take a while. And I think I've only really started maybe the last like five to 10 years at the most really figured out what I want my legacy to be. The things I wanna talk about are really about s tories from the diaspora, certainly, and about community and healing. These are the things I think that are really important to me, especially when we talk about maybe coming from struggle. I don't feel it's enough to be an artist today and just talk about struggle. I want to talk about justice as well. And justice really is about healing, you know?    Miko Lee: [00:10:00] Oh, that's beautiful. Can you talk a little bit more about that healing and what that means to you and how that shows up in your work?    Chi Thai: [00:10:07] A couple years ago, no, not even that long ago, I produced a, a feature film. This is probably the best example for it, but I produced a feature film called Raging Grace, which we called it Horror with a small H and it. Basically took the story of what it was like to be, undocumented Filipina in the uk who was also a mother. And I think if that film had been made 10 years ago, it would just shown how hard her life was, and unrelentingly. So, and I think the reason why Raising Grace is so special is it goes beyond the trauma, it takes us to a place of justice, of being able to speak out for someone who has felt invisible, to be visible for someone who's not. Had a voice, to have a voice and to begin that kind of healing process of sticking up for herself, making a change transforming herself from maybe the good immigrant to the bad immigrant and things like that. I think that's a really great example and I think I read a really wonderful thing. It might have been in a Guardian article where we, so a lot of my work is around, inclusion representation of like diasporic stories. And I think when you have, when you exist in the poverty of like representation, I. the solution to that is plentitude. I think that Viet Thanh Nguyen probably said that, so I don't wanna take credit for it. He comes up with so many wonderful things, and that's a wonderful thing to be able to move from poverty, like to plentitude and that be the solution, is kinda really wonderful. So I enjoy being really prolific. I enjoy supporting artists to be able to do their work. So as a community, we can also be prolific and I wanna support, narratives that. Take us beyond a place of struggle and trauma to a place of like healing and justice and so forth.    Miko Lee: [00:11:57] Your work crosses so many genres. You were just mentioning how that film was kind of a horror film and, and then you've done these kind of dreamy animation pieces and then now this children's book. Do you select the genre and the format and the medium, or does it select you?   Chi Thai: [00:12:16] Oh, I think the story chooses it. I like 100% believe that. I just actually was thinking about this 'cause I was doing an interview on something else, people, often ask about the creative process and I, can only speak for my own. But usually when I get an idea for a story, the general shape of it comes almost like really well formed. There's a sense of a lready kinda what genre it'll be. There's a sense of the character, there's a sense of the journey and all these things. I felt the same about, writing The Endless Sea I knew it would be from the voice of a child. This probably sounds like my creative process is terrible, but it was just. This is how it was going to be. That kind of part was writing itself, or at least I feel that it'd been writing itself like that in my subconscious for many, many years before it kind of surfacing and writing. Like the writing bit is just the tip of the iceberg at the end of the day. there wasn't like a kind of decision about that. the story in that sense was quite intact. So I often feel like the story is demanding something about kind genre and for, for Raging Grace 'cause I've talked about this a lot, not just in listen to me, but other things. But we always said like if you are an an undocumented person, every breath you take is taken in a hostile environment. It's so natural for it to be a horror. So there's not a sense that you kinda decide that it's like that is the very reality of someone who's going, you know, that's their lived experience. And if you're going to represent that truthfully, it will be through the prism of horror. And I suppose that's how I think about genre. the story is kind of telling you what it needs to tell its emotional truth. and I felt that way, with The Endless Sea same thing with the Raging Grace, with Lullaby. And I think you talked about The Promise, I suppose I, with The Promise, which is an adaptation I had less choice about that because that was a book and it was a adapted into an animation. I've heard Nicola, who's the author of the book, talk about that and she talks about like the story coming to her in a dream and tiptoeing down her arm coming onto the page, she like describes it really beautifully. so maybe our processes are the same. It feels that way. there's not long deliberations. I mean, that's not to say the writing process isn't difficult. It is. But that, I've never found the, [genre] the difficulty or the bit that's required a lot of, I don't know soul searching with it.    Miko Lee: [00:14:28] So with that being said, how did Endless Sea your latest children's book? How did that tiptoe into your imagination?    Chi Thai: [00:14:36] This is a strange one because this is probably the closest thing to like, almost autobiographical work. What I can say is like, it's the true story o f how I and my family, which would've been at the time my mom and dad, my older sister, me, how we fled Vietnam after the fall of an Saigon. we actually left quite late we left in 1979 w hen things were tr were getting truly, truly, truly, quite terrible. And, this was very much a last resort. I think my parents would try to make things work, but realized that they couldn't. This journey that we took on these, boats that were made badly, made poorly, that many of which sank has become almost like the genesis story of our family. It's like it's a big, it has a long shadow, right? Ever since you know I, it is like the first story that I can remember. It's one of the few stories my mom would tell me again and again when we, when they see their old friends, it's something they talk about. So it's something that has happened to it to us, but it's such a big thing that it's just, echoed In my life growing up, as I've you know, got older and older, and the wonderful thing about having a story kinda live with you eventually it's in your blood and in your bones, but also if it's a thing that's kinda shared with you again and again, you actually build up this, there's something about the repetition of it, and then every time you hear it told from an uncle or a family friend or from your mom, a new little detail is embroidered that someone adds. So I've kinda lived with this story for 40 plus years and I've been collecting all these little things about it all this time and all that time it was, I think, kind of just writing itself, you know? You know, it was doing all that work before I actually put like pen to paper. Um, yeah.    Miko Lee: [00:16:31] Was there a catalyst or something that made you actually put the pen to paper?   Chi Thai: [00:16:36] That's really interesting. You know, I probably don't mind it is probably something really banal like. I think I probably wrote it during Covid and I had more time. Um, I think there are probably be some bigger forces in place. And you know what, I can tell you what it is actually if I'm, I'm forcing myself to think and examine a bit closer so when this is totally true. So I remember hearing the news about Viet Thanh Nguyen win winning the Pulitzer for The Sympathizer. And it made such a mark on me and I kind of felt, wow, someone from our community has achieved this incredible thing. And I thought, why? Why now? Like, and I was like, well, you know what? It's probably taken our community certain amount of time to come of age, to develop not just the abilities to write, to create, to make art, but also to have possibly the relationships or networks in place to be able to then make the art and get it out into the world. And I kind of felt when he was able to do that and came of age, I kind of felt there was going to be like other people from the kind of diasporic Vietnamese community that would also start to flourish. And that made me feel really good. About probably being a bit older than the average kind of artist, like making their, kinda like their pieces and everything and saying, you know what? My time can be now. It's okay. And I just find it just really inspiring that, you know our community was kind of growing, growing up, coming of age and being able to do these, these things And I kind of felt like it had given me the permission, I suppose the, the confidence to go, “Oh this story that I've been carrying my whole life, which I don't really see a version of out there I can write that and now I can write it and I'm the right person to write it.” And I had just done The Promise so I had a relationship with Walker. I was like, I have a, you know, a relationship with the publisher. I feel my writing is matured. Like I can do this. And so it was like a culmination and, you know, convergence of those things. And, but I do remember having that thought thinking, “This is a good time to be alive in our community 'cause we're actually able to make our art and get it out there now.” I, I felt it was like a real watershed moment really.   Miko Lee: [00:19:11] What made you decide to do it in this format as a Little Kid's Children's Illustrated book? We were talking earlier about how to, to me, this is the first more realistic version of a boat people experience in a very little kid's voice. What made you decide to do it in this style?    Chi Thai: [00:19:33] So interesting. At the same time, I was writing The Endless Sea. I was writing also the script for a short film, which is called Lullaby, which is takes an incident that happened on my boat but expresses it as a film, as a little kinda horror kinda drama, but a kid cannot watch that. It's like too terrifying. Um, and I wrote, you know, The Endless Sea at the same time. And again, I can't, it's really hard for me to articulate. I just knew it was gonna be a kid's book, like, and I knew it'd be written from the voice of a kid, and I didn't actually, can I say I didn't even ascribe a particular kind of value to that. It wasn't until I had started conversations with the publisher they're like, you know, we see like there's a really high, like this is really great that it's written in the voice of the kid. It somehow gives it something else. Something more is something kind of special. I didn't set out to like, overthink, like what was the most effective way to tell this story? I, I think I just told the story as honestly as I could, you know, with the words that I felt that, you know, I had in me to de, you know, to describe it. In the most authentic way to, to me. And like I say, at the same time, I knew, like I knew that was a kid's book. There was another part of that I wanted to express that was really important to me and that was survivor's guilt. But that I felt was like, that was a horror, so that was really not gonna be suitable for kids. So I was definitely thinking about lots of things to do with the same subject of the same time, but they were definitely being expressed in different ways. And again, Lullaby came to me very kind of quickly, almost fully formed. And I knew, you know, it would be a ghost story. I knew it would be the story of a mother and things like that. And I often maybe, you know, I should, I, I should interrogate more, but I kinda, I take these kinda. These ideas, which are quite well shaped and, and then I just like lean into them more and more and more. But they, the way they arrive it, I've kinda, I, I can see a lot of what is already about to unfold.   Miko Lee: [00:21:43] And do you still dream about that experience of being on the boat as a kid?    Chi Thai: [00:21:52] It's, it's a really difficult thing to explain because you know that that happened now so long ago, and I've probably heard the story thousands of times. I've watched all the terrible Hollywood movies, I've seen all the news clippings, I've watched all the archive. I've listened to, you know, people talk, and I have my own memories and I look at photographs and I have memories of looking at photographs. I feel like, you know, my memory is really unreliable, but what it is instead is it's this, this kind of, kind of tapestry of, you know, of the story of memories, of, you know, images as I grow up of hearing the story, like all coming together. One of the things I did when I wrote, I wrote The Endless Sea, is I then went back to my mom and I did a recorded interview with her 'cause I was really worried about how unreliable my memory might be. And I interviewed her and I asked a lot of questions and I said, and I, it was like, you know, in the way I would've just like listened to the story quite passively before this time I interviewed her and I asked a lot of questions about details and all sorts of things. 'cause I really wanted to be able to represent things, you know, as factually as I could. And that was kinda one of my kinda kind of fact checking kinda exercises I did 'cause I was, I was much quite worried about how unreliable my memory was about it all. And you know, what is, what is a memory of a memory of memory, like, you know, especially when it comes to thinking about that time on the boat and the feelings I had. Yeah. So, you know,    Miko Lee: [00:23:34] and you were so young also to    Chi Thai: [00:23:37] Totally 100%. And sometimes, I don't know, you know, is it a memory of a memory? Is it a dream of a dream?   Miko Lee: [00:23:44] Mm-hmm.    Chi Thai: [00:23:44] Or just some, yeah.   Miko Lee: [00:23:46] Was there anything that your mom said that surprised you?    Chi Thai: [00:23:50] Yeah. Um, she didn't realize how bad it was gonna be and she was like, “God, if it, I'd known how terrifying it was I dunno if I, we could have done it.” I think there's a certain amount of naivety involved and I suppose that surprised me. You know? 'cause we know already now how bad it was. Um, so things like that surprised me.    Miko Lee: [00:24:15] and your mom, the dedication of the book is to your mom. What does she think when she first read it?    Chi Thai: [00:24:22] I've got a funny story. My parents, you know, they, we left, they were in their early twenties and I think it was, you know, the escape was hard for them, but settling in new country was really hard for them. That's. That's been kind of their struggle. They had to work so hard, so many hours to kind of, you know, give us a great life. And, I think a lot of that meant they weren't people that could go out, enjoy, enjoy movies, look at art, read lots of literature and things like that. They're very, very simple, very working class. Simple life or working class kinda life. Very much all about, uh, the work. Um, and I remember when I had a, the publisher had made like a mockup of the book and I gave it to my mum to read 'cause I wanted her to be happy about it too, and she's probably been my toughest critic. I think everything I've done, she hasn't really liked, to be honest. Um, and when I gave her the mockup to read. She went, “Yeah,” but she said it in such a way I knew what she meant was Yeah, that's right. You know, that's the truth. That's the, you know, the book isn't the testimony, but it felt like she was saying yeah. It was like the simple kind of approval. It wasn't like a lot    Miko Lee: [00:25:50] That is the most Asian mom's approval ever.    Chi Thai: [00:25:54] It's so funny, like people say to me, oh Chi, it's such a beautiful book. Oh, the writing so lit, like lyrical. It's stripped back, it's elegant. Like, you know, Viet Thanh Nguyen , like God bless his like consults, gave me a comment to put in the book, said these wonderful things, and my mom goes, “yeah.”. You know, it made me laugh at the time, but I knew what it meant. And I also was old enough, I was mature enough, you know, God, if she'd given me that, if I'd been 20 written that I might have cried and my heart might have broken. Right. But I, I knew I had, I've so much compassion, you know, for my parents. Mm-hmm. And people like my parents, what they've been through and, you know, but    Miko Lee: [00:26:38] That was incredibly high praise for her.    Chi Thai: [00:26:40] It was, I couldn't have asked more.   Miko Lee: [00:26:47] Oh, I totally get that. I think that's such an Asian thing. That is so funny.    Chi Thai: [00:26:53] It is, it is. I didn't feel bad. I, I remember showing her Lullaby, um, and she didn't like it at all.    Miko Lee: [00:27:02] What did she say? What is her not like voice? What did she say to that?    Chi Thai: [00:27:05] Oh, she. Well, firstly, she, well, the, the film is almost silent because basically it tells a story. It's inspired by a mother that was on our boat who lost her baby on the border crossing, and I was very much ever, for as long as I knew about this woman's story, I was like, I was very much haunted by it, and I was haunted by, you know, the fact that that's how she felt and her guilt. Over losing her baby on this journey. And I knew, I knew I wanted to tell her story. 'cause one of the things I feel very strongly about is when you are on the losing side. So I'm from South Vietnam, like that's not the, you know, that's not the story that's told, the story is told of who triumphs at the end of the day. And I was just like all those people that we lost at sea, this mother, her baby. The stories kind of aren't told. So I kind of felt really strongly that this was somehow a very creative way to put down like a, an historical record like this happened. And actually I found out after making the film that five babies were lost in our boat, not just one.   Miko Lee: [00:28:24] Wow. So what did she say, your mom say?   Chi Thai: [00:28:28] Yes. So I made this film, which was for the most part, a silent film. This is a woman that's shut down. She barely speaks anymore. She is living with the guilt ever. You know, when she was on the boat before her baby died, she sang a lullaby, and ever since then, she hasn't been able to speak again. And then we find out that she has been haunted by the ghost of her child that she lost. And then a bit too, you know, to kind of free herself from that. She, she actually sings, you know, the, the film culminates in her singing the Luby one last time. S saying Goodbye finally being able to move beyond her Gild and I Griffin, saying goodbye and hoping she's able to, you know, progress. So I made a film about that was largely silence except for this lullaby, and my mum watched it. She went, next time you make a film, you know you need more words. I was just like, oh, I think my heart probably did crumple off a bit a bit at that point.    Miko Lee: [00:29:30] Aw.    Chi Thai: [00:29:31] You know? Um, but yeah. But yeah, it's okay. It's okay because you know what? My mom doesn't get to see stuff like that very often. So sometimes she doesn't have the wider, and this is why, I mean, like, the life that she's had, you know, hasn't been one where she's been able to surround herself with, oh, I'm so lucky. You know, my life has been so different, but it's been different. Different because of, you know what she's, what she's done for us, so it's okay. I can take it on the chin when she says my film doesn't have enough dialogue in it.    Miko Lee: [00:30:04] I love that. For you, have you had conversations with your mom about your life as an artist, and what are her thoughts on that?   Chi Thai: [00:30:16] Well say. So I, so my mom, I don't really like, you know, she's probably not that into it. I'll be honest about being an artist. I can understand why she wants you to have a good life. And I would say for the most part, being an artist is, is a, is a tough life because it's hard to make, you know, the, the pennies work, right?   Miko Lee: [00:30:44] She wants stability for you, right?    Chi Thai: [00:30:45] Yeah, exactly. But she's made a peace with it. And basically what happened, I think all the best story is gonna be about my mom, right? Is that she basically, I, I, um, I have a partner, we've been together for 15 years. Um, he's a really nice guy and he has a reliable job and we have two kids together and i,    Miko Lee: [00:31:08] So that makes it okay.   Chi Thai: [00:31:10] So yeah, this is what I was saying. So she said to me like. It doesn't really matter what you do now. 'cause she, you are already peaked. You're somebody's wife. We're not married. But she told everyone in Vietnam we were married 'cause she couldn't cope with this not being like having kids out of wedlock. In her head. She's rewritten that we are married. Right. She's like, you are married, you're somebody's wife and you mother, it doesn't get better than that. So if you are an artist or if you're a filmmaker, whatever, it doesn't matter. 'cause nothing can be better than that. Right. So she's accepted on the basis that I've already fulfilled, kind of my promise.   Miko Lee: [00:31:46] Wow. Interesting.    Chi Thai: [00:31:50] And she means that in the nicest possible way.    Miko Lee: [00:31:52] Yeah.    Chi Thai: [00:31:52] That she feels like you have a home, you have stability, you have someone who loves you, you know, you have a, a purpose in life, but really her value, you know, the way, I think, the way she measures my value is like, that's how she looks at it. The, the art is something else.    Miko Lee: [00:32:10] Well, I really appreciate you sharing your art with us in the world and your various, um, genres and styles. And I'm wondering how our audience can find out more about your work. Clearly we'll put links to where people can buy the book and let's see, but how do they find out more about your films?   Chi Thai: [00:32:28] Um, so that like, because it is the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War in 2025. Actually the very anniversary of that is the tomorrow, the 30th, April, right? Um, you can watch Lullaby on Altar, which is a YouTube channel. Um, and I can give you the link for it. Rating Grace is on Paramount Plus if you want to, if you've got Paramount Plus, but you can also buy it from all the usual kind of places too. Um, and you know, and we'll see us from all great book stockists, I imagine in, in the us.   Miko Lee: [00:33:07] Thank you so much. Um, I'd love to get, I'd love for you to send me the link so I could put 'em in the show notes. I really appreciate chatting with you today. Um, is there anything else you'd like to share?    Chi Thai: [00:33:19] Um, no, I think, I think that's good. Your, your questions are so good. Mika, I'm already like, kinda like processing them all. Uh, yes.    Miko Lee: [00:33:30] Well, it was a delight to chat with you and to learn more about your artistic vision, and my wishes are that you continue to grow and feel blessed no matter what your mama says, because deep down, she's still proud of you. Even if she doesn't say it out loud.    Chi Thai: [00:33:47] I believe it. I totally believe it.    Miko Lee: [00:33:50] Yay. Thank you so much for spending time with us on Apex Express.Next up, listen to stay, go from dark heart, a concert narrative by singer and songwriter Golda Sargento.   MUSIC   That was the voice of Golda Sargento from the new Filipino futurism punk rock sci-fi dark heart. Welcome, Livia Blackburne Children's book, author of Nainai's Mountain. Welcome to Apex Express.    Livia Blackburne: [00:38:56] Thank you so much for having me.    Miko Lee: [00:38:58] I wanna start with a personal question, which is, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?    Livia Blackburne: [00:39:05] I am Chinese American, and so I carry the stories of my grandparents who fled China to Taiwan, fled that war. And I also carry the stories of my parents and myself who immigrated. To America, and I am, I grew up in New Mexico, so I have fond memories of green chili and new Mexican food. I went to college, Harvard and MIT on the east coast. So I've got a bit of that kind of ivory tower. And now I'm in LA and, you know, my people are, my family and my community, the writing community here. So I, I'm a big mix. Yes.    Miko Lee: [00:39:44] What legacy do you carry with you?    Livia Blackburne: [00:39:47] I mentioned a bit of my grandparents and my parents. What they went through in the war in China, and then my parents and me coming here. the experience of being here in two worlds, coming from Taiwan having that cultural background and also, growing up in the United States. The culture I've been surrounded with here as well.    Miko Lee: [00:40:06] Thank you so much for sharing. Can you tell us about your new illustrated children's book? Nainai's Mountain. What inspired this work?    Livia Blackburne: [00:40:14] The story of this book actually started with another book that is coming out in a couple years that actually I can't share too much about. My grandparents fled the war in China and then my. Parents grew up in Taiwan and I wanted to preserve that family story. My parents are getting older. So I started doing oral interviews with my parents about their childhood, what it was like, growing up. I wouldn't say they weren't refugees in Taiwan. It's a very complicated political situation, but they were transplants to Taiwan, and what it was like growing up there, their daily life. What kind of things they did when they were a child, their pastimes, I wanted to preserve their stories and I got a lot of great material., A lot of that is going into a novel that I'm currently working on. But also as I worked on it, there were so many great details that I thought would be really good in a picture book as well. Also, I'm a mother now. I have an 8-year-old daughter, and she is half Caucasian, half Asian. She has never gone to Taiwan before and I. As I'm writing this, I'm thinking, it would be really great to, I do want to share Taiwan and, my own childhood, home with her at some point. And so I start imagining what would it be like to bring her back to Taiwan and show her everything. And that became the seed for Nainai's Mountain, which is a. Story of a girl visiting Taiwan for the first time with her grandmother. And her grandmother shows her around and tells her stories about her childhood, and the girl through her grandmother's eyes, sees Taiwan, you know, for the beautiful place that it is.    Miko Lee: [00:41:56] You also wrote the book I Dream of Popo. How are these companions to each other and also for audiences that might not speak Chinese. One is a grandmother on the mother's side, and the other is the grandmother on the father's side. Can you talk about how I dream of Popo is linked to Nainai's Mountain?   Livia Blackburne: [00:42:15] Thank you for pointing that out. Yes. So Popo is maternal grandmother, and Nainai is a paternal grandmother. And that is a fantastic question. So I dream of popo is kind of my story. So it's about a little girl who moves from Taiwan , to the United States and it's about her relationship with her grandmother who stays in Taiwan. And it talks about, how a close relationship, navigating long geographical distances about the language barrier that comes up. And that was very much me, Nainai's Mountain. It's kind of like Popo in reverse, you know, it's now it's someone going back to Taiwan and kind of getting in touch with those roots. That, as I mentioned, that's inspired by my daughter. And you'll see in Nainai's Mountain, I specified that the child should be, half Asian, half Caucasian. Because, I wanted more of that representation in the children's literature.    Miko Lee: [00:43:07] Thank you. I, I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the artistic style. So you are the author, but you had different illustrators for both of the books and the style is really different. The in, when I look at Nainai's Mountain, which I'm holding here, it's sort of collage and really vibrant colors. Where I Dream of Popo has a different, more. I'm almost realistic, kind of look to it. And I'm wondering what your process was like in collaborating with illustrators.    Livia Blackburne: [00:43:37] That's one of the best things about being a picture book author, is that you get to collaborate with so many illustrators and they all have such different styles, such different visions. Most of the time it's the publisher who chooses the illustrator, although they. Consult me usually. My editor for I Dream of Popo picked Julia Kuo. And she sent me samples and I loved it. And, it was great. I'm friends with Julia now and that book did really well. It was very well known, especially in kind of Taiwanese American, Asian American circles. And so when I did, Nainai's mountain, that was with a different publishing house and my editor. He very consciously said, you know, because it's also a book about Taiwan and a grandmother. We don't want to get it confused with I dream of Popo. So, we made a conscious decision to pick an artist with a very different style and Joey Chou is fantastic. He's very well known for his Disney art. You can see his art in a lot of the hotels and cruise ships. And, he, very bright, vibrant, and I, he's also from Taiwan. I think he did a fantastic job.   Miko Lee: [00:44:41] And have the artistic work ever surprised you as being really different from your imagination while you were writing?    Livia Blackburne: [00:44:48] That's a great question. I don't think they've ever surprised me. By being different. They surprised me in the specifics that they've chosen. For example, I dream of Popo. Julia, spent a lot of time in Taiwan and she put in these great, Taiwan details that, you know, if you're from Taiwan, you would know for sure. There's like a specific brand of rice cooker called the rice cooker, and she has one there and like the giant bag of rice in the corner, and the calendar on the wall.   Miko Lee: [00:45:16] Even the specificities of the food and the trays and everything is quite lovely.    Livia Blackburne: [00:45:20] Yeah, yeah. You know, every time I read that, I look at that spread, I get hungry. So surprise there. And, with Joey, I, I love how he does the different, there's kind of flashback pictures and there's, pictures now and. The thing about him, his color, I just love the color that he put in from the greens, of Taiwan to kind of the bright fluorescent lights, neon lights of Taipei, and then there's kind of the slight sepia tones of the past and he just, you know, brings it so to life so well.   Miko Lee: [00:45:49] I didn't know he was a Disney animator, but it totally makes sense because it feels very layered. It does feel animated in a way and kind of alive. So I appreciate that.   Livia Blackburne: [00:45:59] I'm not sure. If he's an animator. He does a lot of art for the theme parks and like products and the cruise ships and stuff. I'm not sure.    Miko Lee: [00:46:07] Oh, interesting.   Livia Blackburne: [00:46:07] He does like movies and  stuff.    Miko Lee: [00:46:08] Interesting. It looks like animation though. Your book.    Livia Blackburne: [00:46:13] It does look very, yeah. Lively. Mm-hmm.    Miko Lee: [00:46:16] That I'm looking forward to that series. That would be so cute. The grandmother series as a whole little mini series traveling to different places. can you tell us about your new book, Dreams to Ashes? Has that been released yet?   Livia Blackburne: [00:46:29] Dreams to Ashes? That has been released that, released about a month before Nainai's Mountain. Yeah, that one's quite a bit different. So that one is a nonfiction book and it's a picture book, and it's about the Los Angeles massacre of 1871. Whenever people, I tell people about that, they're like, wait, you wrote a picture book about a massacre? Which is slightly counterintuitive. So I never knew about the Los Angeles massacre growing up. And, and, given that I am a Chinese person in Los Angeles, that is kind of weird. Basically, it was a race massacre that occurred. One of the biggest mass lynchings in history, uh, where there was a between two rival Chinese organizations and a white bystander was killed. And because of that, , a mob formed and they rounded the Chinese population up basically. And. Blame them for that death. In the end, 18 Chinese men were killed and only one of them were involved in the original gunfight. It was a horrible tragedy. And unfortunately, as often happened with these kind of historical tragedies in our country, nobody was really punished for it. A few men were indicted and convicted, but their convictions were overturned and it just kind of disappeared into history. And it really struck me that, you know, nobody knew about this. I wanted to kind of bring this to light and unfortunately when I was writing it, it was also, during the Covid pandemic and, I was seeing a lot of anti-Asian rhetoric, anti-Asian hate crimes were going up. And I saw so many parallels between what happened. Back then, because, you know, Chinese people specifically were being vilified , they were being called immoral, stealing people's jobs. And you can see in the years before the massacre the newspapers were saying horrible things and, you know, the hate was just becoming very strong and all that exploded one night into an unspeakable tragedy. Unfortunately as an author, you want your work to be relevant, but sometimes you don't want your work to be relevant in this way. Right. Nowadays I'm seeing so much rhetoric again against immigrants and not of many ethnicities. And in some ways I'm sad. That, this is happening now. And I also hope that this book will contribute to the conversation and show how the danger of racism and xenophobia and hate and what, what can happen because of that.   Miko Lee: [00:48:55] So this occurred in the late 1800s, right? Was it before the Chinese Exclusion Act?    Livia Blackburne: [00:49:03] Yes, it was before the Chinese Exclusion Act. So you'd hope that people kinda learn from these things. And it was just kind of one of the, one of the horrible things that happened on the way to the Chinese Exclusion Act and Chinese immigrants being excluded basically Chinese laborers at least.   Miko Lee: [00:49:23] Oh wow. Okay. I'm looking this up now. And 1882 we know was the Chinese Exclusion Act and this incident actually happened in 1871. Yes. A decade beforehand, Helen Zia always talks about these moments that are missing. MIH missing in history and this is clearly another one of, another time of just wiping out a population.I'm wondering if you could speak a little bit more about how Children's Books can make a difference in the world that we're currently living in, where our government is banning books and you know that there's a narratives that they want to align with a certain kind of conservative ideology. Can you talk about the power of being a Children's Book author in this time that we're living in right now? . I'm really thinking about dreams to Ashes and even I dream of Popo and even Nainai's Mountain, which you would think, oh, they're, you, they're visiting their grandparent, their grandmothers, that would not be controversial. But now when even words like inclusion and diversity are threatened and books are being banned, I'm just wondering if you could. Share a little bit more about your superpower as a children's book author?    Livia Blackburne: [00:50:31] Yeah, that's a fantastic question. We live in a time right now, there's, a lot of hate, a lot of intolerance, a lot of fear of different people groups. And a lot of that I think is because people are unfamiliar with people unlike themselves. They see. People who are different, look differently, act differently, speak differently, and it scares them. And I think the best way to get around that is to actually get to know people of other backgrounds, to see them as human. And I think that's where children's books come in. ‘Cause we don't, children are not born. With this hate of the other. They learn it. But, if they grow up being familiar with people of different backgrounds seeing their stories seeing them as, normal human beings, which, should be obvious, but sometimes it's hard, for adults to realize. Then, I'm hoping, as a children's book author that it will lead to a more empathetic world. And perhaps that's why the government sometimes in certain groups are wanting to, censor this and control the flow of children's books because, children are the most their minds are still open. They're still able to learn.    Miko Lee: [00:51:48] And Livia, tell us what you're working on next.   Livia Blackburne: [00:51:53] So right now I am. Working on a historical middle grade. We haven't quite announced it yet, so I can't say the title or too many details, but it is based on my family history of my parents and grandparents who moved from China to Taiwan after the civil War.   Miko Lee: [00:52:12] Please check out our website, kpfa.org. To find out more about our show tonight. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world because your voices are important. Apex Express is created by Miko Lee, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preti Mangala-Shekar, Swati Rayasam, Aisa Villarosa, Estella Owoimaha-Church, Gabriel Tanglao, Cheryl Truong and Ayame Keane-Lee.   The post APEX Express – 6.19.25 We Are All Connected appeared first on KPFA.

Forty years later, the anniversary of Vincent Chin's death reminds us Anti-Asian hate crimes haven't gone away. Filmmaker Renee Tajima-Peña, who co-directed the documentary, “Who Killed Vincent Chin?” and activist Helen Zia talk with Ray Suarez about the ongoing fight to recognize diverse Asian-American histories, challenging stereotypes and what justice means today.    For more information, check out Renee Tajima-Pena's documentary, Who Killed Vincent Chin?, and Tajima-Pena's docuseries, Asian Americans.   Guests:   Renee Tajima-Peña, Academy Award-nominated filmmaker and Professor of Asian American Studies at UCLA   Helen Zia, activist, executor of the Vincent and Lily Chin estate, and author of books including Last Boat out of Shanghai and My Country vs. Me   Host:   Ray Suarez

Denise and Lisa talk with Lily Chin, well-known Crochet and Knit designer, teacher, and author about her career, training, and experiences in her career. You can find complete show notes at https://arcticedits.com

Chin estate trustee provides insight on how difficult it was to get justice for Vincent Chin. The Asian American community was small and reluctant to speak up. Even civil rights organizations weren't sure about Asian Americans in a black and white world. It may also explain why Asian Americans have reacted differently in recent years to hate crimes that should be considered as significant as Chin's but have failed to get traction with a now larger, divided and complacent Asian American community.   Show Log: :00 Intro, the basic factsa about the death of Vincent Chin, update from Helen Zia, and observations about the case.How the civil rights community was sometimes at odds with Asian Americans. 10:21 Audio portion of interview with Helen Zia 23:26 Emil reads from his 2012 column where Chin's killer Ronald Ebens apologizes for the murder. 34:04 End     Emil Guillermo: Lessons from Vincent Chin murder 35 years after; Podcast interview with Helen Zia; and thoughts on my interview with Chin's killer, Ronald Ebens June 18, 2017 8:40 PM We have now arrived at the 35th year of these essential Asian American facts: On June 19, 1982, Chinese American Vincent Chin, 27, who was with friends at his own bachelor party, was mistaken for being Japanese by two white auto workers, Ronald Ebens and his stepson Michael Nitz, at a Detroit strip club. Ebens told me Chin sucker-punched him. The fight was taken outside, but then broken up. It would have ended, but Ebens and Nitz pursued Chin by car and found him at a nearby McDonald's. In the parking lot, Ebens brutally beat Chin with a baseball bat.  Chin was comatose for four days and pronounced dead on June 23. For that crime, Ebens and Nitz, his accomplice, were allowed to plea bargain. They pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, were sentenced to three years' probation, and fined $3,720. There was no prison time for the murderers of Vincent Chin. The Asian American community was outraged, which led to a federal civil rights prosecution against Ebens and Nitz. Ebens was found guilty on one charge and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He appealed to the Sixth Circuit, and a second federal trial was moved from Detroit to Cincinnati. Ebens was acquitted by a Cincinnati jury that found no racial motivation in the killing of Chin. That's where the story has been for the last 35 years: The perps are free. And Asian Americans can still be victims of extremely violent hate crimes, like Srinivas Kuchibhotla, an Asian Indian mistaken for a Muslim. This year in Olathe, Kansas, Kuchibhotla was allegedly killed by a white gunman who yelled, "Get out of my country." For the 35th year marker of Chin's death, I called to get an update from the writer Helen Zia, who is also the trustee of the Chin estate. Zia said the Chin family was awarded a $2 million judgment in civil litigation against Ebens back in the '80s, and continues to monitor Ebens, now 77 and retired in Nevada. "The judgment has been continued," Zia told me. She said that with interest and penalties, the judgment could be in excess of $8 million, but Ebens has "not paid a dime."   Zia said she's philosophical about recovery.  "The guy did what he did," she told me. "He's a killer. He got away with murder. But the things that need to be done on behalf of the community don't depend on him or his death. It will bring closure. But it doesn't mean hate crimes have ended." An edited portion of my interview with Zia is in my podcast, Emil Amok's Takeout. Besides being the trustee of the estate, Zia was right there in the thick of the Chin case in Detroit. A journalist with legal training, she wrote for the daily newspaper there, but refrained from writing about the case so she could be one of the founders of American Citizens for Justice, the group formed to fight for Chin. It was just a handful of Asian American lawyers and activists. At that time, there were few Asian Americans in the law or in journalism. And there was no one with the expertise to do a federal hate crime case. Thirty-five years later, Zia said that what strikes her the most are the things people don't bring up about the case.  The human stuff, like the late Lily Chin, Vincent's adoptive mom. "She died feeling that if she hadn't adopted him, he'd be alive," Zia told me. "It's so sad to me to think about it that way." But the human stuff also includes the human opposition to the case within the community and the backlash that existed at the time. "We had civil rights people who said, 'We'll support you because Vincent was Chinese and thought to be Japanese, but if he were Japanese, we won't support because he would've deserved it,' " Zia said. "I said 'What? You're kidding?' The Michigan ACLU and the Michigan National Lawyers Guild strongly opposed a civil rights investigation because Asian Americans are not protected by federal civil rights law. That was something we had to argue." Fortunately, the national offices of those legal groups prevailed and forced the state chapters to comply. "Here were some of the most liberal activist attorneys saying Asian Americans shouldn't be included under the civil rights law. Vincent was an immigrant. We had to establish he was a citizen, with the implication there might not have been a civil rights investigation if he had not been naturalized. All of this stuff...these were hurdles we had to overcome with major impacts today," Zia told me. "Can you imagine if the Reagan White House had followed the National Lawyers Guild's Michigan chapter and the ACLU of Michigan and said, 'Why should we look expansively at civil rights? We shouldn't include immigrants and Asian Americans.' And at that time, that would include Latinos too, because at that time if you were not black or white, what do you have to do with race? Those were the things people would say to us." Zia said after 35 years, a quick telling of the Chin case rarely discusses just how difficult it was to fight for justice. But she says those are the enduring lessons of the Vincent Chin case, because it has contributed to a modern sense of social justice for every American. "Every immigrant, Latinos. Every American," Zia said. "Hate crime protection laws now also include perceived gender and disability. It was the Vincent Chin case when we had to argue civil rights was more than black or white." Zia said the case was also more difficult because it was during a pre-digital, non-computer, pay-phone age. Communication occurred slowly.  But the case was also slow because Asian Americans were a micro-community. We're 21 million now and feel empowered. In 1980, the Asian American population was just 3.7 million nationwide. And most were timid, non-boat rockers. "In the Vincent Chin case, people were incredibly reluctant to become involved," Zia told me. "They had never gotten involved before. And I think that's what gets lost [in the retelling of the story]. Exclusion didn't end till about 1950, and so what that meant was Asian Americans of every kind, from Chinese to Filipinos, everybody, were pretty much totally disenfranchised till the mid-20th century." "So when Vincent Chin was killed 30 years later [in 1982], the communities had. . .I think of it as stunted growth. There weren't people running for office. If there were, it was a miniscule number. There weren't people standing up; we didn't have advocacy organizations." A right to justice, and a community's sense of empowerment, was a difficult thing to imagine for many Asian Americans. "Not only did we not have it," Zia said, "People didn't even recognize it was something we could have. The idea we all came together with the Vincent Chin case and sang 'Kumbaya' and took over and went to the Reagan White House and the Department of Justice and got all these things to happen. . .that's a mythology. And I think it's a disservice to the next generations to think this." Helen Zia knows what was happening in Detroit in the '80s as the fight began for Vincent Chin. More of her thoughts on Emil Amok's Takeout.   RONALD EBENS I don't know what Vincent Chin's killer did for Father's Day. I last talked to Ronald Ebens in 2015, around the June 23 anniversary of Chin's death. "I'm doing fine," he told me then, adding quickly he had a good Father's Day with his kids.; I asked him then if he ever thought about the anniversary. "Like what?" he said. "I never forget it." Never? "Of course not." It was 2015. "I'm 75 years old, and I'm just tired of all that after 33 years." He's 77 now, and Helen Zia doesn't want him ever to tire or forget the truth. "He will never spend a day of his life without knowing he has a huge debt to society and a huge debt to Vincent Chin's family," Zia told me. "And one day, he will pay for it." The very first time I talked to Ebens was in 2012, on the 30th anniversary of the Chin murder. On the podcast, I read aloud the column that I wrote on June 22, 2012. It has Ebens explaining himself and describing what happened that night. He was reluctant to talk to me, but he did. And during our conversation, he apologized for the murder.  "I'm sorry it happened and if there's any way to undo it, I'd do it," he told me in my exclusive interview. "Nobody feels good about somebody's life being taken, okay? You just never get over it. . .Anybody who hurts somebody else. If you're a human being, you're sorry, you know." But Zia, who read my column at the time, has never bought that as an apology. "I stood next to this guy in court, and I see his face, over and over, read his words, and frankly, I don't see a shred of sincerity," Zia told me. "[He's really saying] 'I didn't even mean to kill, why should I have to go through this.'" And then to me, Zia said, "It would take more than you interviewing him saying, ' I'm sorry, I killed him.' Let's see how sorry he is and set an example for future people who are thinking of killing a Muslim student in North Carolina, or a man in Kansas. These killers who kill out of hatred and go to justify their killings, it takes more than saying I'm sorry."   http://www.amok.com http://www.twitter.com/emilamok http://www.aaldef.org/blog    

Brainy Thing:   13:45                             Behind the Redwood Curtain 23:10 What we’re learning from our Knitting    Margaret is knitting a cowl out of Katia Temis or Colibri —she’s lost the ball band   There’s no pattern:  She just casts on 25 or more stitches and knits in garter stitch on very large needles (size 13) until she runs out of yarn.   This is her exercise bike knitting.  She also reports on how much she likes the Designing Vashti Yarn:  Lotus Z-twisted sport weight fashion yarns:  52 cotton, 48 rayon.  She knit up Kira K’s Belle Epoque shawl (http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/belle-epoque-shawl) with it and has had a chance to try it out and she loves the mix of cotton and rayon.   After years, Catherine finished her first pair of socks.  She’s knit many since this first pair that she never quite4 finished.  She used a generic cuff down sock recipe that she got from the sock knitting class she took and used a Brown Sheep Fleece cotton and wool yarn.   Brainy Thing:  Lily Chin:  Teacher Extraordinaire Margaret analyzes why she thinks Lily Chin is an excellent teacher. Margaret recently finished viewing the Crocheter’s Toolbox video and also took a class in person with Lily on knitted closures.   Behind the Redwood Curtain:  ACV The Arcata/Eureka or the Eureka/Arcata airport (which actually is in McKinleyville) according to some people is the foggiest airport in the U.S.   Whether that is true or not, it has a fascinating history.   Knitting Tip:  SSK Catherine tells us about a neater, more “perfect” left leaning decrease.  

Catching Up: (0:25) Laura went to Disneyland for Dapper Day. We also talk about Galliday. She's been dying for both Mean Girls and Sunnydale Yarn Clubs. She's really enjoying Agents of SHIELD. And she did some family visiting. Jen has been working a million hours a week, cutting into her knitting time. She and Ron played two gigs, one at a wine bar and one at the Long Beach Art Walk. She visited her family and got to see her new baby niece and her other niece and her nephew. She's continuing work on her Firefly sampler from Watty’s Wall Stuff and spinning on her Threewatersfarm. Melissa went on a cruise with her knitting group and got a lot of knitting done, for the first time in a while (because she likewise work a million hours a week). She has a cold (not Legionnaire's Disease). She saw Kingsman and we talk about the violence in the film. And she's really excited for Furious 7. We also talk about inappropriate work emails. In the Knitting Bag: (11:05) As a note: Melissa is wearing her Customfit Featherweight Cardigan out of Dizzy Blonde DK in the Martha colorway. Laura passed the 2nd corner and on the 3rd side of her Yggdrasil Afghan by Lisa Jacobs out of Berocco Vintage Chunky Mocha. One more row until the second sleeve of Quinty by Bernadette Ambergen is done. She's making the XL size in Dizzy Blonde Studios Superwash Sock, color Marie. She started on Swirl Hat (Crochet) from Patons for her mom for Mothers' Day out of Knit Picks Gloss Fingering in black.  She's all ready to start on Ink by Hanna Maciejewska in Dizzy Blonde Studios Superwash Sock in Applegate.  She's also doing a magic ball preemie hat out of odds and ends of Knit Picks Brava and Berroco Vintage.  And she's planning to do a Yarn Baby Shawl KAL with her friend Cheryle of the Carson Shawl by Romi Hill in 3-color yarn baby from Forbidden Woolery out of Pride Fingering in Smoke Signal, Illium and Mo Duinne Jen is almost done with the second sleeve of her Customfit Tunic out of Cascade Heritage.  She's also working on her Bohus Cuff from her class from Stitches West.  She's swatching for the Four Season Summer Symphony Wedding Ring Shawl by Russian Lily out of Gossamer Weight Silk/Cashmere from Colourmart in a cream color. Melissa is doing a test knit for Customfit that is way overdue out Wollmeise DK in Erbse. She is also working on her Coracle in Sweet Georgia Trinity Worsted in Oceanside. And another Customfit sweater that she calls her Korl!!! Cardigan out of Cascade 220 in Coral (and yes the name is a reference to The Walking Dead. She is also preparing for a knitalong with a coworker that she taught how to knit. They are going to make an open-front cardigan from the book Knit It!: Learn the Basics and Knit 22 Beautiful Projects, which we recommend for the beginning knitters in your life. Finished Objects: (22:30) Laura finished one preemie stripy hat that she cast on for social knitting for Stitches West. She's made it out of leftover Berroco Vintage and Knitpicks Brava. Jen finished her second 15-color Rainbow Sock in The Fab Funky Fibres self-striping sock yarn of the same name and the heel was out of black Cascade Heritage.  She did the thumb joint top hat afterthought heel by Lara Neel and loves it! (You can find instructions in the Fork in the Road Socks pattern--which is free). We mention Lara's book Sock Architecture and her blog Math4knitters. Melissa blocked and seamed a sweater that had been done since December. She had a pile of stuff to block and seam, but she had a blocking block. All three of us have them. Devil's Tower: (25:37) Which segues to a boring Devil's Tower where we all have stuff to block. Frog Pond: (25:54) Melissa wants to do a shawl collar on her Korl!!! cardigan. She decided to wing it. She had to frog it one time. Then, history repeated itself, so Jen frogged it this time because Melissa just couldn't bring herself to do it...again.  What are friends for? This sweater also had an issue with the sleeves, because Melissa generated the pattern with straight sleeves instead of tapered sleeves. This sweater has been a lot of knitting. This sweater is cursed. We mention the films Snowpiercer and Dracula: The Untold Story. On Deck: (31:31) Laura added Bunnies "R" Us by Marken of the Hat and I to her list of usual suspects. Jen's planning on starting on the Hitofude, redesigning the Joshua Tree Cardigan, something for her friend's baby and a shawl for her to wear at her sister's wedding. Melissa will start the aforementioned cardigan with her coworker. She also wants to make the adult version of the Playful Stripes Cardigan by Alana Dakos, Charlie's Cardigan by Amy Herzog, and she might make a third Leah’s Lovely Cardigan. Jen and Melissa both love how the sweater fits although the find knitting it a bit of slog. Knit Culture: (36:50) Stitches West wrap-up! Laura spent most of the time in her booth, but she enjoyed it. Her haul included a lace-weight linen gradient yarn baby from Apple Tree Knits, another 3-color sparkly yarn baby from Forbidden Woolery, a Little Brother gradient set from Yarn on the House.  Sparkly "Exploding T.A.R.D.I.S." yarn from Steven Be and the book "Crochet so Lovely" by Kristin Omdahl. Jen and Laura got to meet Stephen West at the pajama party and he was very personable and funny (he judged the pajama contest) and he complimented Jen's Leah's Lovely Cardigan. Melissa got a ton of compliments on her Rainbow Sweater. Jen and Melissa had dinner with the Knitmore Girls and Maria from Subway Knits. Jen took a design your own Pi Shawl class and learned a new cast-on she loved. Jen got a mug and some stitch markers from Jennie the Potter, some lovely red fingering weight yarn from Jill Draper Makes Stuff for a sweater, some pink fingering yarn from Miss Babs for a sweater, and lots of vintage buttons, including Bakelite sets. Both Melissa and Jen got some rainbow yarn from White Birch Fiber Arts. Melissa enabled Jen to get some Indigodragonfly for a sweater (and Melissa got some too) from the Yarnover Truck. We love her colorway names. Melissa also got a Jennie the Potter mug and some citrus yellow Jill Draper Makes Stuff Yarn. Melissa got some new yarn babies from Newton's Yarn Country, one in hot pink and one in purple and they were a great deal. She also got several sweater quantities of yarn from Miss Babs in Perfectly Wreckless and Deep Sea Jellyfish and Funny Papers. Melissa and Jen took a six hour class on picking up stitches with Lily Chin and are now experts on picking up stitches. It was amazing. Jen took a class on Bohus Knitting with Susanna Hansson and it was amazing. She even got to see some of the original vintage garments, and even pick them up and handle them. They worked on a cuff in class as well. She wants to get a kit to make a sweater from Angora Garnet. And she also took a great stranded knitting class with Beth Brown-Reinsel, which was amazing, but her brain was seriously fried because it was Sunday. Melissa took color classes with Laura Bryant of Prism Yarns. Jen is not going to take so many classes next year; she is going to do more social stuff. Laura got to meet Marnie McClean in person. And Melissa and Jen got to reunite with a old knitting friend who surprised everyone by coming from England to attend Stitches (who also won the student fashion show). And everyone managed to have great food, including Psycho Donuts. We mention Exploration Station, Rockefeller, Enchanted Mesa, Green Planet Yarn, and Foxy Knits. Geek Culture: (1:05:00) "Goodbye Old Friend", we bid a bittersweet farewell to Leonard Nimoy and Terry Pratchett. Jen shares her favorite Leonard Nimoy story. Upcoming Events: (1:08:32) Vogue Knitting Live, April 17-19 at the Pasadena Convention Center. Laura is taking Amy Herzog's class. Camp CogKNITive, August 21-23, Camarillo, CA. Yarnopshere, October 17-18 EXPO Art Center in Bixby Knolls, Long Beach.

We get a little bit of innuendo and silly in this one.  No bad language, but a little less clean than you are used to, so you may want to listen first if you have small ones. We sort of fly by the seat of our pants in this episode! We are joined by Special Guests Melissa and Erica. We are at Stitches West and are exhausted and overwhelmed and a little sleepy and maybe a little tipsy (but we're legal so it's okay). In the Knitting Bag (1:43) Laura has no knitting! Melissa is knitting on Leah's Lovely Cardigan out of Malabrigo Sock in a blue and the McIntosh Cardigan by Gudrun Johnson from Knit With Me out of Madelinetosh in Tosh Merino Light in Tern and Edison and Button Jar Blue. Erica is working on the Brier Island Sweater out of Miss Babs Heartland Worsted. She cast on for cowl in Skeindalous Buddy Sock, but had no time to knit. Jen finished her Sweetheart of the Rodeo Cardigan and her Barley hat and gave it to the Knitmore Girls for the Throwdown. She is also working on her Ravellenics project, a shawl out of Mean Girls Yarn Club. Melissa finished some shawls that had been long-term WIPs for the Ravellenics. Frog Pond (10:05) Laura frogged some of her homework to make hat tags--but there aren't sad knitting stories when you're not knitting. Melissa learned from Brooke Nico how to fix mistakes in lace in her Stitches class. Erica calls her mistakes "design decisions" and so does Melissa because "perfection is only for God." Devil's Tower (11:44) Laura is sick of hats, so she's not going to finish the hats she's working on for the Throwdown for later and donate them to Halos of Hope later. We're all a bit hatted out. Stitches Talk (13:48) Laura has been working at her booth and it's been amazing. We had our meetup, which was great. But she is so busy. She wants a little time to shop. Erica is glad she only bought one sweater quantity worth of purple yarn. But she's bought a lot of blue sweater yarn. She got some yarn from Verdant Gryphon, Sweet Fiber, and giant skeins of fingering weight from Miss Babs (yarn Babies). Melissa and Jen also bought yarn babies from Miss Babs. Melissa bought a lot of vintage buttons. And she continues to buy pink yarn, green yarn, and neon yarn. She might have bought and entire rainbown. Melissa took some classes. She took the Fixing Mistakes in Lace Knitting with Brooke Nico and Intentional Patterning with Hand-dyed Yarns with Laura Bryant. She loved them both and recommends them. We talk about the Pajama Party with Marly Bird. Jen got some laceweight from Terilyn Needle Art for a sweater (and so did Melissa) and some laceweight cashmere from Stitch Sisterz. She also got a Miss Babs yarn baby and some Miss Babs sock yarn, some Quince and Company Chickadee to make the Chickadee by Ysolda. Melissa and Erica both got measurements take by Amy Herzog and we talk about Amy's Custom Fit Software and the myth of Standard Size. Jen got a consultation with Amy as well and thought it was great. We talk about the Fit to Flatter group on Ravelry. Jen took Christine Bylsma's Design in a Day class, which was awesome. She also took Edie Eckman's Where Do They Get Those Numbers?, which she recommends for math phobic knitters. And she took Design Inspiration with Lily Chin, which was great. Laura took a class about German and Japanese lace with Brooke Nico and she loved it! Jen and Melissa both saw Myra Wood's keynote where she talked about her Knit in New Directions book. Jen's sweater (made with Laura's yarn) was in the Friday fashion show. We met Steve from It Takes Balls to Knit. Laura, Jen, and Melissa went to the pajama party, had fun, and Jen and Laura won yarn from Malabrigo and Fiesta Yarns. We also mention Skacel and Ben from the Fiber Hooligans and XRX. Jen and Melissa went to the student fashion show. We also had our meetup and got to meet a lot of our listeners. And then Jen and Laura went to the podcaster meet up. Shout outs to the Yarniacs, Just Another Bay Area Knitter, Knitmore Girls, Two Knit Lit Chicks, Hollywood Knitter, Dr. Gemma and anyone else we might have forgotten. We talk about Namaste and how amazing they are. To support the Podcaster Throwdown, they gave the leader of each podcast team a free Harlow bag and t-shirts. We can't say enough good things about these ladies and their products. They are wonderful. Melissa and Jen recommend audio books for their long road trips. We talk about fangirling Myra Wood, Amy Herzog, Brooke Nico, Pam Haschke, Ben Levinsay, Steve from It Takes Balls to Knit, the Yarn on Tap girls. (And Jen loves their sock kits). Melissa talks about a neon yarn baby she bought from Newton's Yarn Country. Melissa is very proud that Stitches is the first time she's bought yarn all year, since last year she bought so much yarn she became a Loopy Legend. We also mention Shalimar Yarns and Plucky Knitter. In closing, Miss Kalendar has the cutest baby ever!

Podcaster Throwdown: (0:34) Tub o' hats! It's crunch time! There is virtual way to participate. You can now donate for your favorite team. Click here and choose your team. $5 is equal to one hat for your team! Each $5 lets Halos of Hope to ship 16 hats to cancer centers and hospitals around the country. The board is all volunteer, so all the money goes to shipping. Check out Episode 8.5 for Throwdown information. Check out the Podcaster Throwdown group in Ravelry. There will be prizes for participating in the Throwdown group on Ravelry, courtesy of XRX. Check out the Halos of Hope website and Ben’s interview with Pam Haschke on Fiber Hooligans. The January incentive pattern is Assquack. Post your finished hats in this thread to get your incentive. There are prizes for donating to Team Knottygirls. Check out Episodes 10, 11, 12, and 13, as well as the Prize Page for prize listings.  New prizes include a custom-dyed skein of Dizzy Blonde yarns. Send your hats to Purlescence Yarns, tagged for Team Knotty. Shipping information is here. Purlescence Address: Purlescence Yarns your name & the name of your team 564 South Murphy Ave Sunnyvale, CA 94086 Designer Brenda Castiel has all of her hat patterns and hat/mitt set patterns at a discount, just use coupon code HALOS. Also, thank you to Brenda for her generous donation to the podcast. Catching Up: (5:49) Jen stayed up way too late on New Years Eve, but she had a lot of fun. She's also been busy with work, especially since it's flu season (stay healthy everyone!). She's been playing Fallout 3 again, because she misses video games. And she's been drop spindling her pink corriedale, and cataloging her stash (except for the remnants and a few new things). Laura has been relaxing now that her family is gone. She has an adorable granddaughter (Jen can vouch for this). She's also been cataloging her stash.  And she's been watching Downton Abbey. And she will play one more tournament of Nerd Wars to groom a new captain. In the Knitting Bag: (15:14) Jen has been working on vanilla socks in very old Opal Sock Yarn (the Rainforest series, colorway Flamingo, which is pink). She is over halfway done with the California Poppy Shawl by Lydia Tsymbal out of Baah La Jolla in My Sweet Valentine for Melissa. And she's been swatching out of Wollmeise DK, for her Sweetheart of the Rodeo Sweater. Laura has been working on her man sock out of Lambie Toes in No Touching Guns, an Olivia’s Butterfly Hat in Knitpicks Brava in grey. She is also working on a Doctor Who-inspired hat in Dizzy Blonde Studios Superwash DK in Smurfinator and Down the Garden Path by Michele DuNaier out of Lambie Toes in the Indefinable Allure Colorway, for a booth sample for Stitches West. Finished Objects: (19:17) Jen finished the Man Hat by Haven Leavitt out of blue Plymouth Encore Yarn and a Gerri Hat in Peter Pan Wendy Yarn in pink, both for Halos of Hope.  And she can finally reveal her Christmas project: a St. Brigid sweater by Alice Starmore from Aran Knitting out of black Cascade 220. Dragon Tail Hat Laura finished another Big Damn Hero Hat by Dryope out of Knitpicks Brava in Canary, Orange, and Paprika. She also finished her Dragon Tail Hat by Jen Spears for Nerd Wars in Knitpicks Brava in Asphalt Heather and Dove Heather, an Odessa Hat by Grumperina out of Dizzy Blonde Studios Superwash DK in Jessica for her sister-in-law, with beads. And she finished the Spring Lacy Hat by My Hobby is Crochet out of Berroco Comfort in Copen Blue and Yellow. Devil's Tower: (25:34) Jen has Vanilla socks.  And Laura is pulling out her 22 Leaves Shawlette by Lankakomero. She’s making it out ofMean Girls Yarn Club in Heart in a Box. Frog Pond: (26:39) Jen did run out of yarn on her St. Brigid, as she suspected. She used a ball with a non-matching dyelot for the collar treatment. She was lucky she was using Cascade and black so the dyelots weren't too far apart and it's almost impossible to tell. Laura frogged her Sous Chef hat by Marly Bird because she didn't like how the colors looked together. We mention Sassy Gay Friend. On Deck: (32:41) Jen will be making her sweater that she's been swatching for, hats (including a stripey one out of the Delicious Yarns Frosting Worsted in Blueberry and Pistachio leftover from her gramps cardigan) and yellow hat using some leftover Encore Worsted. She will also look for more remnants to make some stripey. Laura will be actually starting her Who-inspired hat, a stripey hat for January, and she wants to do Ysolda Teague's Follow Your Arrow Mystery KAL out of Knitpicks Chroma Fingering and Gloss. Knit Culture: (37:54) Stashdown 2014! We challenge ourselves and our listeners to reduce stash as a year-long project. Knit from your stash all year long. Catalog your stash and find out what you have (however you want to). Then set goals for yourself. Each month will have a theme and a thread to post FOs along the theme and there will be prizes. Set some goals for yourself (these are personal, so whatever you want). Jen’s goals are to buy no yarn except for at Stitches West or if Wollmeise Lace becomes available and to knit/crochet/spin at least 20000 yards of yarn (this may be reassessed). Laura will only buy yarn at Stitches (as much as she wants) and only one skein of yarn at smaller festivals. She wants to knit at least 1/3 of her stash (or maybe this needs to be evaluated). She will check her stash before she buys yarn for projects. We recommend Knitmeter.com to help track your yardage. January's Theme is Stripe it Up! We take a page from Halos of Hope--use up your leftover Christmas project yarn (or other remnants) to make projects. Post your FOs on January's theme here. January's flash prize is to Flash Your Stash! Do it here for a chance to win January's flash prize (a digital copy of Doomsday Knits courtesy of Cooperative Press.) Fall down in your goals? No problem! Just go to the Confessional Thread for no judgement support to get back on that horse. Ravellenic Games! For the 2014 Ravellenic Games (this links to the Ravelry group) we've thrown our hat in with Team Sasquatch (a giant pan-podcast team). So join us! Geek Culture: (47:54) We review Doomsday Knits by Alexandra Tinsley and published by Cooperative Press. (This is where knit and geek culture collide). Digital retails for 16.95 USD and 29.95 USD for a print+pdf version (the print version will be available later). We love this book! The patterns are clever and lovely and it has a sense of humor. We love the styling for the most part. Some of the sweaters would be very unflattering for larger people, but that's okay. The accessories are fantastic. Four Thumbs up (and a toe!) Events: (58:53) We will be at Stitches West, which is February 20-23 in Santa Clara, CA at the Convention Center. Dizzy Blonde Studios & Skeindalous Yarns are sharing a booth (booth 906 and 908). The Dizzy Blonde booth is a collection point for Halos of Hope hats for Team KnottyGirls (the final collection point!). With prizes! Shout out to the Purlescence Girls (who have the booth across from us) and we are right next to Halos of Hope (Booth 904). We will be doing a meet and greet, time to be announced. We are taking classes. Jen is taking Design Inspiration with Lily Chin, Design in a Day with Christine Bylsma, and Where do They Get Those Numbers with Edie Eikman. Laura is taking Around the World: Japanese & German Lace with Brooke Nico. We have to cancel Knit 2 Together with Yarn on Tap due to scheduling conflicts. Our next milestone prize will be at 1000 members, so join the Ravelry group! And don’t forget to knit hats and donate.

Lily is the star of some fabulous new crochet DVDs and wants to tell us all about them. Please join us!

In this latest episode of our video web series, we chat with Lily Chin, knitting and crochet author, designer,

The always interesting Lily Chin will tell us all about her new books!

Actor-network-theory (or ANT) posits that the world is made up of forces, given physical form–it’s actually more complicated than it sounds. I gave a brief and inadequate explanation of how this theory applies to creative writing. (All brief explanations of actor-network-theory are misleading.) A better explanation of the particular point in ANT that I referenced is given in “Unscrewing the Big Leviathan,” a paper by ANT theorists Michel Callon and Bruno Latour. If you want to learn more about ANT, you can visit the Actor Network Resource. Tales for the Perfect Child is by Florence Parry Heide, with illustrations by Victoria Chess. Right now it is on sale on Amazon for a dollar or so. It is definitely worth the shipping costs, as it is a very light little book. Charmed Life is by Diana Wynne Jones, one of my favorite authors. She is no relation of Tim Wynne-Jones. You can buy fitting shell patterns from the major pattern makers, such as Vogue (the last two patterns on the page). Each fitting shell is customized for that company’s patterns. You may need to make other shells to give yourself baselines for working from patterns published by other companies, because their sizes may be different. Threads magazine has a library of excellent sewing tips and instructions; here is an article on fitting shells, also known as slopers. Here is another that briefly describes ease, and another really helpful one on evaluating the quality of a given pattern. It is about sewing, but has good ideas for a knitter to think about. Want to know how to measure yourself accurately? You may need a friend to help get the hard-to-reach measurements. This Threads article shows you how. Find out about darts! The VogueKnitting article on fitting is by Lily M. Chin, and came out in the Spring/Summer 2008 issue, on page 40. Also see Lily Chin’s Couture Crochet Workshop: Mastering Fit, Fashion, and Finesse. Adele P. Margolis wrote Make Your Own Patterns: A Primer in Patternmaking for Those Who Like to Sew. What is a gusset? Gibbs’ wrestling move is actually a martial arts move (silly me) known as a C-step. An “Ender complex,” as I have named it, is the tendency to hit back at an aggressor as hard and as long as it takes to destroy that aggressor, so that he/she/it will not dare or be able to attack again. I named this complex after Ender Wiggins, the protagonist of the Ender series by Orson Scott Card. (Hi, Kris and family, if you’re listening.) Rat aggression can be caused by many things, including an oversupply of testosterone. Note that not all male rats or even dominant male rats are aggressive toward humans. Most of them are very sweet, very bad boys. My McGee is totally dominant, must supervise everything and eat all the good stuff first, and he is a total cuddlebunny to my husband and me. A very active, toothy cuddlebunny. He pinches and pulls the other boys’ loose skin with his teeth all the freakin’ time, but he doesn’t pinch us. The most straightforward thing to do is get the aggressive boys neutered, since mine hate being separated, even when they are in a turf war. (This is so codependent of them.) I don’t know what to do for girls. Finding an appropriate vet to do the job can be tricky because rats have different physiology “down there” than dogs, cats, and rabbits, and if the surgery is not performed correctly, your rat can leak bad stuff and get infected and suffer a lot and then die. So do your best to find a good vet. The music in this podcast is included by permission. “Jim the Toothbrush” is from Eric Strom’s Daily Song archive. The lyrics are by thscientist1 — whoever that is. Kate McDowell wrote and performed “The Princess’s Promise.” You can find more of her work at http://www.katemcdowell.com/ The Vital Might wrote and performed “The Truth.” Find more of their work at http://www.thevitalmight.com/music/

This week's episode is sponsored by: New in: Tanis Fiber Arts fingering weight and a pattern written specifically for it: the April Showers sock. This week's special: Colinette Jitterbug (3/4-3/9, 20% off) On the Needles: Gigi is working on (mostly) vanilla socks this weeks. She has finished her Bulky Boot Socks, and has started a vanilla sweater, but ripped it out in favor of a new pattern. Events: Jasmin and Gigi discuss Stitches West. Jasmin and Gigi took the same classes - mostly. Colleen and Jasmin took Ergonomcis of knitting with Carson Demers, where they learned some stretches, life strategies for balancing knitting with physical health. Jasmin recommends standing up during commercial breaks. On the way to class, Jasmin was accosted by Cat Bordhi! Jasmin and Gigi, at Cat's recommendation, are going to try and get to Sock Summit. Thursday evening, Jasmin and Gigi went to the market preview. Using her wish list, Jasmin bought some batts (in Purr-ple and Tropical Fruit) and Wensleydale from Lisa Souza. Jasmin thinks it is going to grow up to be a Ribbi Pulli. Jasmin also got some Superwash merino in "Graphite". Jasmin got some interesting fibers from Tactile (babydoll, carbonized bamboo) and A Verb for Keeping Warm (targhee). Jasmin also ran into WonderMike, of YKnit notoriety. Jasmin bought a kit from Sheldrige Farms (the Inverted V top). Jasmin fell in love with Abstract Fibers. Jasmin bought a set of lace circular needles from Asciano Fibers, made of Cocobolo. Gigi fell in love with the Cocoknits patterns. Gigi found some Berroco Ultra Alpaca in a beautiful peacock blue and some red Kauni at WEBS. Friday: Jasmin and Gigi took Lucy Neatby's "Cool Socks - A" class all day. They learned the channel island cast-on, as well as loads of other nifty tips and tricks. (We will be reviewing her fantastic DVDs on the podcast, courtesy of Lucy Neatby and Sheldrige Farms.) Saturday: Jasmin and Gigi met Dr. Gemma of CogKNITive! Jasmin and Gigi had the meet and greet. Jasmin and Andrew went by the Redfish Dyeworks booth, where she got some mango colored 80% merino/ 20% tussah silk roving and Andrew picked out some 50/50 Silk Merino (project TBD). Jasmin picked up some replacement roving in Freestone Firecracker from the Royal Hare. After the market, Jasmin, Gigi, and Rosemary (from Designs by Romi) went to the party at Bobbin's Nest, which was lovely. Afterwards, we took a brief detour to get some AMAZING frozen yogurt, then went to the show-and-tell at Purlescence. Sunday: Jasmin and Gigi took the "Design Your Own Sock Architecture" class with Cat Bordhi, who we chatted with in September. Combined with the Lucy Neatby class, our minds were blown. Jasmin went to the show floor to pick up some Oak Grove yarn (to darn a pair socks) for Andrew. Jasmin went to talk to Cheryl Oberle, and while Andrew was waiting in line to pay, he picked up two skeins in "Stones". Jasmin also picked up some of the Creatively Dyed sock yarn to test drive, NOT in pinks and purples, selected by Andrew. Gigi bought some Silk/Merino from Tess Yarns in a beautiful charcoal grey, which will become a Cocoknits sweater. (Sweater TBD.) At the show, Jasmin and Gigi got audio with Lucy Neatby, Galina Khmeleva, Cheryl Oberle, and Lily Chin. Administrative stuff: Jasmin and Gigi are trying to get to Sock Summit, and they need your help. A donation of $5 or more gets you a logo magnet, and for a donation of $10 or more, we'll send you a logo pin (and a magnet). We will be adding a new segment called "Straw into Gold" about spinning! Until then, Meghan from Stitch-It has an AWESOME, regular spinning segment. We need ideas for contests! Send them our way.

Lily Chin! Need I say more? The first lady of crochet design comes on to get a little loopy with us. Email your questions to me and we shall see what happens!

Interview with Lily Chin