The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire #7: Jami Nakamura Lin

"The pieces that are the hardest to write, that feel like you’re bashing your head against a brick wall, can break open into something you never thought you could write..."

Since 2010, in various publications, I’ve interviewed authors—mostly memoirists—about aspects of writing and publishing. Initially I did this for my own edification, as someone who was struggling to find the courage and support to write and publish my memoir. I’m still curious about other authors’ experiences, and I know many of you are, too. So, inspired by the popularity of The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire, I’ve launched The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire.

Here’s the seventh installment, featuring

Jami Nakamura Lin

, author of The Night Parade, an illustrated speculative memoir. -Sari Botton

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Jami Nakamura Lin. Photo by Ananda Lima

Jami Nakamura Lin is the author of the illustrated speculative memoir The Night Parade (Mariner Books/HarperCollins), a Vulture/New York Magazine Top Ten Memoir of 2023 and a Boston Globe Best Book of the Year. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the New York Times, Sewanee Review, Passages North and many other publications. She has received support from the National Endowment of the Arts and the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission, Illinois Arts Council, Yaddo, Macdowell, Sustainable Arts Foundation, We Need Diverse Books, and more.

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How old are you, and for how long have you been writing?

I’m 35. I started telling stories aloud to myself when I was about 4, and started writing them down a couple years later. I’ve wanted to be an author since I was quite young, but as I grew older, I got the sense that it wasn’t something you could really do as a career. So while I never stopped writing, I stopped thinking of it as something that I wanted to be, until I was at the tail end of college.

What’s the title of your latest book, and when was it published?

The Night Parade: A Speculative Memoir was published by Mariner/HarperCollins in the US in November, 2023. In January, Scribe published it in the U.K., Australia. Earlier this month, Scribe published it in New Zealand.

What number book is this for you?

This is my debut!

How do you categorize your book—as a memoir, memoir-in-essays, essay collection, creative nonfiction, graphic memoir, autofiction—and why?

I categorize it as an illustrated speculative memoir—my sister Cori Nakamura Lin did the full-color watercolor/gouache illustrations that open each chapter and section.

I’m very happy the marketing department let us put the words “a speculative memoir” on the cover, because at one point we weren’t sure if they’d think it was too confusing or not marketable enough. I think of each chapter as an essay, though, because that’s how I wrote them—as standalone essays.

The category of speculative nonfiction is wide, and different people have different definitions. The Night Parade uses elements and frameworks such as time travel, portals, and fabulism as ways to hew closer to the truth. Some chapters are told in the second and third persons; one section is told from the perspective of the bird outside the window of the protagonist, who can’t get out bed. I’ve made all of these choices because while they diverge from what others might call straightforward “realism,” they were the only way I could scratch at them, they were the only way I could tell this tale and have it feel similar to lived experience.

What is the “elevator pitch” for your book? (Up to one paragraph.)

The Night Parade is an illustrated speculative memoir that uses yо̄kai and other Japanese, Taiwanese, and Okinawan spirits and creatures of legend to interrogate my father’s death and my bipolar disorder. Along the way I talk about motherhood, miscarriage, Japanese American incarceration, and other intergenerational ghosts, ultimately asking, How do we learn to live with the things that haunt us?

The Night Parade uses elements and frameworks such as time travel, portals, and fabulism as ways to hew closer to the truth. Some chapters are told in the second and third persons; one section is told from the perspective of the bird outside the window of the protagonist, who can’t get out bed. I’ve made all of these choices because while they diverge from what others might call straightforward “realism,” they were the only way I could scratch at them, they were the only way I could tell this tale and have it feel similar to lived experience.

What’s the back story of this book including your origin story as a writer? How did you become a writer, and how did this book come to be?

Oh, this a long—life-long—story. In one way, I’ve been working on this book forever. I recently found this document I wrote in January 2007, when I was 17. It was a “book proposal” for a memoir I called Robopink. In the proposal, I wrote that my book “floats seamlessly from the real world to the imaginary one, and everything blurs into a milky consistency… It doesn't have a happy ending, but it does have a real one.” In that proposal, I talked about how I was influenced by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and other writers, and how I was trying to blend different genres. (It's funny, because I forgot I wrote that, and then for years I tried to write this memoir in a straightforward way, and then in the end I ended up with something not too far away from that 17-year-old’s vision.)

I’ve been wrestling with the same things in my writing since at least that long. As I mentioned, I’ve been writing since I was very young. As a kid and teenager, I wrote a lot of poetry and short stories, and I kept very detailed journals. I didn’t know what an essay was, so a lot of my essay-ish feelings came out in these confessional poems that were hugely influenced by Plath, Lowell, etc. I had undiagnosed bipolar disorder, and writing was my way of trying to make sense of the world around me. When I wrote it down, it became somewhat clearer.

But since I didn’t think writing was a viable career path, I studied psychology in college. I had been diagnosed by then, and wanted to be a social worker. I had a vague idea of minoring in English, but I took a couple of lit classes and hated them, so I dropped that. But my senior year I had an empty slot in my schedule because I didn’t get into a psych class I wanted to take. I saw there was an advanced nonfiction workshop, and I thought that sounded really interesting. I sent some of my writing to the professor and asked if I could be admitted even though I hadn’t taken the prerequisite, and he let me in.

In that class, we each pulled a number out of a bag to see our order of submission. I had the bad (good) luck to be first. I wrote that essay in a wild dash and submitted it. Afterwards, my professor pulled me aside and asked me if I’d thought about an MFA in nonfiction. I hadn’t, but I was interested—I’d always had those writing dreams. So in a huge rush he helped me put together an application package and I was accepted. (One of those essays I wrote in that class, in fall of 2010, was called “The Rage.” I worked on it off and on for the next decade, until a transformed version was published in The Night Parade. A 13-year process!)

I went to a very small MFA program because it was fully funded. I regret going so young. I worked on a thesis about my experiences with bipolar, but I wasn’t able to figure out what kind of feedback was helpful yet. I internalized a lot of things I shouldn’t have. It’s taken me years to un-learn things from my MFA. I also was so stressed by the academic environment! I was hospitalized and had to take a semester off.

When I graduated, I was 24, and was so sick of writing about myself. I pivoted and tried to write a YA fantasy novel based on Japanese folklore. That’s when I really started getting into yо̄kai, these creatures and spirits of legend. In 2017, I went to Japan for four months on a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts/Japan-US Friendship Commission to do research and see things. When I was there, I found out my father was dying.

The next couple years I hardly wrote. My father died, I had a miscarriage, I had a child, I didn’t know how to finish my YA book. When enough time had passed after his death, and I was ready to write about it, I discovered I couldn’t write about any of in a way that felt true—until I got the idea to use the folklore as a lens.

I wrote the first chapter of the book, “The Dragon King,” and had it accepted by Catapult (RIP!) This was in December 2019. Then I saw that they were looking for columns, and I proposed one called “The Monster in the Mirror.” I wrote six essays for that column during 2020, and got an agent as a result. We signed at the end of 2020, and sold my book on proposal in early 2021.

I wrote the book for all of 2021, and revised for all of 2022.

Order the book.

What were the hardest aspects of writing this book and getting it published?

I was very lucky about the time we sold the book—it was the part of the pandemic when the publishers were doing very well, and there was a lot of interest in the book. When I think back to it, so much of it was timing.

But since I sold it on proposal, afterwards I had to actually write the rest of the thing. After I sold it, I asked my therapist—what if I have to be hospitalized again because of the stress? The last time I had been in such a stressful, deadline-oriented situation was in grad school, and I’d been hospitalized then, and I was very afraid. My therapist gently told me that there were many steps in between going to see a therapist once a week and being hospitalized, and if I needed more support at any point, we could make adjustments.

I ended up managing, but it was very hard to be that deeply in such emotional work. I did four rounds of massive revision with my editor, and then two smaller line-editing rounds before we went to copyedits. My revision process is often just starting something from scratch, so I was writing these chapters over and over again from blank documents, trying once again to tell the stories of the hardest times of my life.

Only later in the rounds did the book become more speculative, and then by necessity—because nothing else was working, because it was the only way. Then it became more joyful and entertaining to write, but still hard.

I dreamed of my father all the time when I was writing. We had this kind of spirit world dream realm together. After I finished writing, and stopped thinking about him as intensely, I stopped dreaming of him as much. I miss that.

How did you handle writing about real people in your life? Did you use real or changed names and identifying details? Did you run passages or the whole book by people who appear in the narrative? Did you make changes they requested?

I wrote about my family using their real names, and I sent it to my immediate family members before we went to copyedits, saying that they could bring me any concerns. But I was lucky, in that I wasn’t writing conflicts with other people that I thought might be an issue. My family has always been so, so supportive, and they are very generous with me. (We were in family therapy throughout the writing process, which helped!)

I wrote about people who had been in a psychiatric facility with me as a teenager, but I changed their names and identifying details to protect their privacy.

There was one story I went back and forth on—there was someone from my past who had an anecdote that would be relevant to the book. But the anecdote was very personal. I didn’t feel like I could put it in the book, even with their name changed, because there was a very slight chance they could be recognized. I would have to ask their permission, and I didn’t feel comfortable reaching out and asking for permission for this very personal story to someone who is now a near-stranger to me. I went back and forth on whether it was worth reaching out or dropping the story. In the end, I dropped it.

I went to a very small MFA program because it was fully funded. I regret going so young. I worked on a thesis about my experiences with bipolar, but I wasn’t able to figure out what kind of feedback was helpful yet. I internalized a lot of things I shouldn’t have. It’s taken me years to un-learn things from my MFA. I also was so stressed by the academic environment! I was hospitalized and had to take a semester off.

Who is another writer you took inspiration from in producing this book? Was it a specific book, or their whole body of work? (Can be more than one writer or book.)

So many! Sofia Samatar, Chigozie Obioma, Bora Chung, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Bruce Owens Grimm, Carmen Maria Machado. Kelly Link and K-Ming Chang and Aimee Bender, who were all gracious enough to blurb my book!

What advice would you give to aspiring writers looking to publish a book like yours, who are maybe afraid, or intimidated by the process?

The teeniest tiny steps are still steps. I am intimidated by the process every day. I was intimidating to fill out this questionnaire! I combat this by using full-stick Post-it notes for everything. I am writing my novel on Post-it notes. A Post-it is small and unintimidating. A blank page can seem like so much, but I think, I have enough ideas for a 2” x 2” Post-it. (I write more about my process—which often consists of tricking myself—in this craft essay.)

Also, never underestimate the power of community. Community is the one of the best ways to combat fear—to have people to cheer you on. I wouldn’t survive this career without my group chats! I also take online writing classes from time to time to keep me motivated. 

What do you love about writing?

Making the world in my mind concrete, visible to other people. The way writing can be a tether from one person to another. How, while writing an essay, I can twist something that has been amorphously, frustratingly floating around in my head, into a question.

What frustrates you about writing?

Almost everything! How much I fear it!

What about writing surprises you?

I think how the pieces that are the hardest to write, that feel like you’re bashing your head against a brick wall, can break open into something you never thought you could write—you never knew you were thinking.

Does your writing practice involve any kind of routine, or writing at specific times?

I’m a morning and night person. My best work happens between 9-11am and 9-11pm. (In the afternoon, I am a pile of mush.)

I do a lot of co-writing with friends, and I subscribe to something called Caveday, which essentially is body doubling/co-working Zooms all day long. You can just hop on every hour and there are fifty other people working with you, and you make a specific, concrete goal for that hour. It is very helpful for my ADHD.

After I sold the book, I asked my therapist—what if I have to be hospitalized again because of the stress? The last time I had been in such a stressful, deadline-oriented situation was in grad school, and I’d been hospitalized then, and I was very afraid. My therapist gently told me that there were many steps in between going to see a therapist once a week and being hospitalized, and if I needed more support at any point, we could make adjustments.

Do you engage in any other creative pursuits, professionally or for fun? Are there non-writing activities you consider to be “writing” or supportive of your process?

I do a lot of fiber arts—knitting, crocheting, spinning, dyeing—and a lot of gardening. I recently started growing my own dye plants, which is a combination of both pursuits. While gardening, I think about writing-related stuff often. I think because my body is moving, it keeps my mind moving. Knitting is a way for my brain to take a break, because while I’m knitting there are literally no thoughts in my head.

I’m one of those “all thinking is writing” people. I think all of it is supportive. Taking a break from writing for six months can be supportive. Whatever helps you get back to the page when you finally do. 

What’s next for you? Do you have another book planned, or in the works?

I’m writing two novels right now, both over the 50,000 word mark, but both still without full arcs. My process is so messy and haphazard. Hopefully I can finish one of them! I have a lot of fears, but also a lot of hope.

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Check out all the interviews in The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire series.