Melissa Fu
Melissa Fu (she/her) grew up in Northern New Mexico and has lived in Texas, Colorado, New York, Ohio and Washington. She now lives near Cambridge, UK, with her husband and children. With academic backgrounds in physics and English, she has worked in education as a teacher, curriculum developer, and consultant.Peach Blossom Spring is a beautiful novel about war, migration, and the power of telling our stories. It is a bold and moving look at the history of modern China, told through the story of one family. It’s about the power of our past, the hope for a better future, and the haunting question: What would it mean to finally be home?
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I think it’s more that writing gives shape to my life. As someone who has always kept journals, the practice of putting pen to page is how I make sense of the world. At the same time, my experiences shape the writing in that my starting points tend to be something from life – a memory I can’t stop thinking about, a moment that stopped me in my tracks. Whether the writing becomes a poem, essay, or piece of fiction depends on how it proceeds. Perhaps now I’m a little more patient than I would have been as a younger writer. I’m more willing to let the writing develop and become itself, rather than trying to make a particular point or argument. It’s as interesting to me to discover what I’m writing about as I go along as it is to go back later and improve it.
My desk!
I recently found a video of the Japanese violinist, Shunsuke Sato playing J.S. Bach’s Violin Partita in D Minor in a historic church in the Netherlands. It is night, the church is lit with strange, beautiful shadows, the rapt audience is only a handful of people, and he plays from memory. I’ve loved this piece of music for a long time, and somehow, to find this incredibly haunting performance feels like a bit of serendipity.
Oh, so many! I love children’s books. Here are a few that come to mind – Harold and The Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson, The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, all of the Richard Scarry books. The book I reread the most times as a child was L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables.
My 18-year-old son is the noodle king and has taken to making amazing lunches. I will miss his concoctions when he goes to university! (I’ll miss him, too.)
A "beautifully rendered" novel about war, migration, and the power of telling our stories, Peach Blossom Spring follows three generations of a Chinese family on their search for a place to call home (Georgia Hunter, New York Times bestselling author).
"Within every misfortune there is a blessing and within every blessing, the seeds of misfortune, and so it goes, until the end of time."
It is 1938 in China and, as a young wife, Meilin’s future is bright. But with the Japanese army approaching, Meilin and her four year old son, Renshu, are forced to flee their home. Relying on little but their wits and a beautifully illustrated hand scroll, filled with ancient fables that offer solace and wisdom, they must travel through a ravaged country, seeking refuge.