My memoir in essays, detailing my life as an adopted, biracial Japanese American, began as my MFA thesis back in the early ’90s. My plan was to take a year post-graduation to polish up the manuscript, send it out to agents, and have it snatched up by a publisher. If you had told me then that my book wouldn’t be published for another 30 years, I’m not sure what I would have done.
Perhaps I should have listened more carefully to my thesis advisor, Sheila. After congratulating me on the successful completion of my 90-page manuscript, Sheila offered, gently, that perhaps the book “wasn’t ready to be out in the world yet.” I vaguely recall her using words like “premature,” “needs time to marinate,” and “distance.” I was indignant. Furious, actually.
“Maybe you’re too close to the story to be able to write about it right now,” Sheila suggested. “Or maybe the full arc of the story isn’t complete yet.” I vehemently disagreed. I’d searched for and met my birth mother over 20 years earlier, and the roller coaster of our reunion already seemed to contain a thousand arcs.
Of course, Sheila was right.
The story was incomplete – until now.
I had no
