Amy Tan's Blog

• How to start and end an email

  May 17, 2009

  • I've been puzzling over the social form known as email.  More often than not, people send me emails addressed with a salutation of the kind used with the other form of correspondence once simply known as a letter: "Dear Amy"  or "Hi Amy"  or "Hello Amy" or "Hey Amy", "Dear Ms Tan"  or even  "Dear Amy Tan".   Occasionally, there is ...
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• Never before seen on the stage: A ghost who turns an evil man into an instant eunuch

  August 12, 2008

  • My best excuse for not having written a novel in the last three years is that I wrote libretto for an opera, "The Bonesetter's Daughter," which, by coincidence, is the name of a book I wrote. The composer is Stewart Wallace, who's done a number of operas, including Harvey Milk. We met at Yaddo the year that the cops were chasing OJ down the freeway (that's how he and I remember ...
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• The rejuvenation of an old yorkie

  June 25, 2008

  • After Bubba died, Lilli was depressed.  She stayed at the top of stairs waiting for him.  She slumped around, walking stiffly and slowly like an old dog, and after all, she was twelve years old and arthritic.  She did not eat much and all the old treats held no interest.   That was one of the reasons I decided to get a new puppy, King Bombo.  Bubba had never really played with Lilli.  But ...
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• Forget about a thousand monkeys and their typewriters

  March 15, 2008

  • ,Z,ZZZ Z LX,X, LLVLVMLDMVLLLDLDLCC;;CDLCLD'LVL'KDV'L'LKVSDSVDSVLKL'L'KL'DSVVDSVDL'K Above is our new pup's first email, which he produced by walking delicately across the keyboard in my lap. At 15 weeks, he already shows promise as a writer. Who knew? Notice how he began his story with a comma. Startling and brilliant. He has a unique voice. And we have a name! My friend ...
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• The darkest moment of my life

  January 23, 2008

  • Several dark thoughts: 1. The most trivial recent dark moment was what happened after I spent time writing this blog entry the first time, then pressing the button to preview it. The entry disappeared. Operator error no doubt, but anthropomorphically I imagine a computer in an internet cafe with a mean streak. 2. An enlightening darkest moment: I went caving last week. Caving is a caver's ...
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• Wish I was Here Moment

  January 15, 2008

  • This is the internet cafe moment. Husband and I are in a remote place where you can check your email on your cell phone for $18,000 a minute. The other alternative was to spend $3 an hour and use a keyboard pre-conditioned by hundreds of thousands of tourists with sticky fingers who cannot always enjoy the mysteries and magic of where they are. They must be where they are not and see who is ...
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• ZOOM MOMENT

  January 4, 2008

  • Yesterday, Husband and I drove from Tahoe to home. Actually, he drove and I slept. I nodded off somewhere east of Donner Pass, five minutes after we bought two lattes to go at the stand in front of the hardware store In Truckee. (Lattes with low-fat milk near a sign that said, "Sorry, we can no longer sell lids separately from garbage cans.") The latte was delicious but ...
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• VIRGIN BLOGGER MOMENT

  January 1, 2008

  • I've never written a blog entry. I don't really know what blogs are. Confessions? Random thoughts? Stuff you later regret saying in a public forum of strangers? Why do people have blogs? To reveal their unconscious thoughts raised into consciousness? To spout about any little thought that comes to mind and capture it before it floats aware forever like exhaled breath, or hayweed or dandruff? ...
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