Ms. Lan Thanh

Today is World Refugee Day.

This is me and my siblings, reunited in the Philippines in 1985. I was seven years old. I don’t remember this day at all.
Before this, I was in Japan, one more country in a childhood spent moving through them. War had scattered all of us. My father was taken by the Viet Cong three months after I was born. For years we kids were spread across borders, and then this, all of us in one frame again. I lost most of those years. What’s left comes in bits and pieces, never a whole day like this one.

So I spent years believing being good was my personality. It was survival. The girl in this photo had already learned to keep moving and not look back.

I’m telling her story now, even the parts she doesn’t remember. Especially those.

What the Mud Made Me, out this August.

I had never said this out loud until someone asked me directly.

Frances A. Chiu, a writing coach and editor, interviewed me about my memoir, What the Mud Made Me, out this August. Her first question was about survival. Somewhere in the answer I heard myself say the thing I had spent decades not saying. I survived cancer and still could not choose myself.

If you were taught to be a good girl too, the kind one, the quiet one, this is for you.

Comment MUD below and I’ll send the full interview straight to your messages

Two years ago, Ella and I sat in the audience at our first Craft&Release. She leaned over and asked if I’d ever submit my story.

I told her: Watch. One day Mommy’s going to be on that stage.

Last year I submitted. I didn’t get selected. I tried again this year.
Saturday I stood under the red light and told the story I’d been most afraid to say out loud, the one that lived in a drawer for years. And Ella was in the front row, exactly where she’d been sitting when I made her that promise.

I found her face before I opened my mouth. That was the whole reason I could.

This is the first story I’ve ever shared from my memoir, out this August. The recording from that night is the closest thing to being in the room.

Comment FEAR and I’ll send it to you.

Last year I submitted a story. It didn’t get selected. I was disappointed, but I kept writing, and this year I finished my memoir.

Craft&Release became our thing. Mine and Ella’s. A mother-daughter date we’d look forward to, sitting side by side watching people get brave on that stage.

One night she looked at me and said, “Mommy, you should submit your stories.” And I said, “You’re right. Watch. One day you’re gonna see Mommy up there.”

The theme this year was fear. I’d just spent months writing my way through mine. So I submitted again, scared and all.

Then, I got this email.

She gets to see it now. She gets to know that the thing you want doesn’t always come the first time, and that’s not a reason to stop. You keep going.

Thank you, , for this stage, and for building a place where I get to come back and try again.

I have a professional book cover designer, but I was curious about the creative process, so I decided to play with AI.

What do you like better, option A (mustard) or B (green) or C (neither)?