Willa Zhang is a writer living in Missoula, Montana. Her essays and short stories have appeared in The Southern Review, The Rumpus, The Masters Review, and elsewhere. More of her work can be found at willazhang.com.
Willa Zhang
Shells and Homes
Willa Zhang - November 23, 2022
A Review of Ling Ma's Bliss Montage
“Los Angeles” is the first short story in Ling Ma’s new collection, Bliss Montage, and a city that I moved away from six weeks ago. When I left, I said goodbye to friends, family and familiarity for a new life in Montana. Under these circumstances, reading Bliss Montage became a source of comfort. Ma weaves the surreal with the fabric of everyday life until they are nearly indistinguishable, with such seamlessness that there is great pleasure in visiting the world through her eyes.
Alternative Forms of Therapy
Willa Zhang - April 23, 2021
Speaking with Michelle Zauner about her new memoir, Crying in H Mart
Back in 2018, Michelle Zauner, also known as the writer Japanese Breakfast, published an essay in The New Yorker titled “Crying in H Mart.” It touched a nerve in the Asian American hive mind, because soon many Asian Americans seemed to be reading it or asking friends if they’d read it, passing the link and a New Yorker account password so they could whisper to each other, “Yes! I can relate to its sadness and the beauty!”
Pure Craft is a Lie: An Interview with Matthew Salesses
Willa Zhang - January 22, 2021
Matthew Salesses talks to Hyphen about his new book, Craft in the Real World
Anyone who has ever felt alone and adrift in a writing workshop: Matthew Salesses sees you. In Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping, Salesses tackles the complex mission of redefining how craft exists in a world inhabited by people of different races, classes, sexual orientations, as well as within cultures outside of white Western culture.