Esmé Weijun Wang on Redefining Ambition and Writing Through Hard Times

Real Talk Radio with Nicole Antoinette

00:00 / 01:40:56

Esmé Weijun Wang is an award-winning author and advocate. At esmewang.com, she provides resources that assist aspiring and working writers in developing both resilience and mastery on the path to building a creative legacy.

Her emphasis on resilience originates from her own experiences as a writer, having learned the importance of adapting to difficult times from life with schizoaffective disorder and late-stage Lyme disease.

Esmé studied creative writing and psychology at Yale and Stanford, and received her MFA from the top-tier Creative Writing program at the University of Michigan. The author of THE BORDER OF PARADISE (Unnamed Press, 2016), as well as the e-book LIGHT GETS IN, she has been published and seen in Salon, The New Inquiry, the New Yorker Online, and The New York Times.

In this episode, Esmé shares why she constantly works on redefining ambition for herself, why it's important to her to build resiliency and mastery in her life and work, the nature of her mental health advocacy, the writing process for her debut novel, what it's like to attend a writer's residency, how to re-write the narrative that being ill means we are broken, plus the specific self-care practices that provide her with comfort and nourishment.