The intimate, in-between spaces of new motherhood is maddening and mysterious – quiet and dark like the insides of pockets, where things are secreted and held, sometimes with intention, more often without, and quickly forgotten.
brenda Lin is a writer and literary translator from Taipei, Taiwan.
I am the author of Wealth Ribbon: Taiwan Bound, America Bound (University of Indianapolis Press, 2004) and Unraveling Threads: Essays on Inheritance (Mad Creek Books, 2026).
In my writing, I am driven by a desire and excitement to find patterns in the seemingly random, but mathematically gorgeous way the universe knits itself together. I write from the urge to translate the ineffable into words and even though I accept that my translation will never be perfect, I cannot help but try. My aesthetics and tensions come from the in-between spaces of maternal time, the in-between states of being a mother/daughter, and the in-between identities of being Taiwanese American. I want to write the way warp and weft lock together to form an undulating plane.
