Poems "Love Song, Foreign Affairs Journal" and "Ahnighito" in Diagram Magazine

When I was in foreign service school at Georgetown, Foreign Affairs was my daily reading on Healey lawn, at the cafeteria or late nights at the library, procrastinating on a paper. I've always found geopolitical language to be so excessive, vague yet vivid, and thrillingly convoluted... much like love. So I had no choice but to write a love poem using that language, and it's out now with Diagram Magazine.

Diagram also published a poem dedicated to the meteor called Ahnighito (Cape York Meteorite), which you can not only see but touch at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. When I fit the heel of my palm into a crevice of this 34-ton piece of iron that descended into Earth over 10,000 years ago, well, I had no choice but to write this.

Read at: thediagram.com/25_4/wei.html. Thank you Ander for giving these a home!

"The Drive" in the Adroit Journal & 2025 Veasna So Fiction Scholar

Thank you Adroit Journal for making me one of the 2025 Veasna So Fiction Scholars, and for publishing "The Drive!" Read here.

This story starts in DC the night of the 2016 U.S. elections and ends a decade later in Iceland.

I was inspired by the marriage of Clara Immerwahr and Fritz Haber. Haber had invented both the synthesis of ammonia which saved countless people from famine, and gas warfare in WWI. Clara was one of the first women to receive a doctorate in chemistry, but had devoted herself to supporting her husband's career, and was known as a pacifist. I tried to imagine what that relationship would look like today, with all its collisions, comforts and misunderstandings.

Finally, you can watch a reading of the Fiction Scholars on YouTube.

Unfortunately, I had connectivity issues joining from China, so I didn't quite finish what I intended to read, but luckily it's all available to read online, both the story in Adroit and "How to Catch the Sun" which first appeared in Wigleaf.

Poem "旦 [dan] daybreak" featured in Poetry Daily

Did you know there are 13 words for 'dawn' in Mandarin? This poem is part of a series where present each word as an experience, a landscape to traverse. I've always found dictionary translations of my mother tongue to be unsatisfying and limited, and so, I imagine a world where dictionaries are made of poems. Read here.

Thank you Poetry Daily for featuring this poem, and to Boulevard for first publishing it!

Runner up in Boulevard Magazine's Poetry Contest

Seems like just yesterday I was in high school, sitting on the floor of Barnes & Noble, reading Boulevard Magazine for the first time and dreaming of seeing my name in its pages one day. Now Boulevard has selected me as runner up to their 2022 Poetry Contest. My poems will be in the next issue. Thank you Boulevard for this privilege and for sowing the seeds in my fifteen-year old heart!

Dogs! Revenge! 1st Person Plural! Story "Geraldine Foggs" published in Identity Theory

There's revenge! Dogs! Mysterious illness! Yuppies! Small town crimes! Revenge by dogs! "Geraldine Foggs" is now out with Identity Theory. It only takes 12 minutes and no cost at all to read here.

This story about a cleaning woman with a crooked son and an unexplained blindness is told from the perspective of the town. I've always loved the first person plural. Anthony Doerr's "For A Long Time, This was Griselda's Story" and Jeffrey Eugenides' Virgin Suicides are gorgeous examples. It took me several drafts over the years to get the point-of-view and magical realism atmosphere right. A good reminder to keep editing and don't give up on your favorite stories. 

Can't thank enough editor extraordinaire Sophie Newman who helped me land the ending, and Matt Borondy for bringing me into the Identity Theory community, and who found the perfect photo to go with this piece.

Correspondence with an Artist: Naming Nature, Creating in the Pandemic and More

Would you save what you can't name? How do you create in a pandemic? What do the minutiae of art/poetry do for this big world? Artist Leigh Ann Beavers and I tackle the tough questions, and more!

Read at: shenandoahliterary.org/thepeak/a-correspondence-yun-wei-leigh-ann-beavers

Story "It Was A Watermelon Love" in The Boiler!

New story about young love, old regrets and lots of bad-good art now out with The Boiler ! What would you do if you had a chance to see a past love after decades? Would you meet them or run the other way so that you can freeze those perfect memories? Would you even recognize each other?

Inspired by sunny days in Provence and lots of tipsy gallery openings in NYC, this story took me a year to perfect... and it's less than 5 minutes to read! Don't know about you but sounds like a good deal to me.

"It Was Our First Great Sorrow" and "The Best Things in Life" in Shenandoah Journal

In the first week of the pandemic, when we didn't know this would last for more than a year, when we created a bunker life in a one-bedroom apartment, these two poems poured out of me. In "It Was Our First Great Sorrow," I imagined what hell would be like if it were made of flowers, when something beautiful turns into the tragic. Then in a burst of uncharacteristic positivity, I thought about how phrases like "the best things in life" are so familiar yet unknown and undefinable. Those moments that make you feel on a visceral level that life is precious are the ones that surprise, the ones that defy rational explanations. Now, more than a year after that bunker life, Shenandoah Journal has put these poems out in the world, and the world has changed so much, yet in some ways, not at all.

Read the rest of "It Was Our First Great Sorrow" and "The Best Things in Life."

And check out the full issue of writers I'm lucky to be sharing space with, including Anna Maria Hong and a new translation of Adonis!

Poem "Into the Moraine" in Michigan Quarterly Review

 

I'm lucky enough to live in a place where it's easy to go to the mountains. It's also easy to see and feel just how fast the glaciers are melting due to climate change. You will see a stark naked line where the greenery stops, and there’s only rubble below, all the way into the valley where ice used to be. You feel the pain of it, because that hiking path has been buried under a rockfall. If you ski down the Vallee Blanche, you'll end the route at least 12 stories below the train platform, and every step climbing up the stairs, skis on your back, your feet aching in those heavy boots, you're reminded of how much bigger the glacier used to be just a few decades ago.

This poem was one way to make that pain visible to the rest of the world. It's never too late to start.

Many thanks to Hannah Webster and all of the Michigan Quarterly Review editors for including it in their latest print issue, as well as Khaled Mattawa for the deeply inspiring foreword. Order your copy here.

Le Tour Glacier, France

Poem on Atlanta shootings, "Stones Between the Toes, I Walked," in Poets Reading the News

The shooting of eight people, including six Asian women, in Atlanta felt like an extension of the racist sexual harassment that I and so many Asian women are all too familiar with. Because the stereotypes of the model minority and the objectification of Asian women are considered "positive" narratives, we're told to take it as a compliment, when really, desire doesn't keep you safe, it puts you in harm's way.

The disease of these dehumanizing narratives is highly infectious and persistent. It was in Paris I was told I was too pretty for a Chinese, in Geneva where I've been followed home at night, in New York where I was groped on the subway. It doesn't matter if it was last week, years ago, or back to the 1875 Page Act, every one of those dehumanizing attacks stay with me. Forgetting makes it easier to live through, but I don't want to forget. It shouldn't take a mass murder for us to say it's wrong, it's all wrong. Now is the time for rage.

Thank you J Spagnolo and Sophia Marina for making my poem news. Read here.

Here are just a few of the brave, brilliant women who inspired me:

• https://www.vox.com/22336317/atlanta-georgia-shootings-racism-misogyny-targeting-asian-women
• https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-atlanta-shooting-and-the-dehumanizing-of-asian-women
• https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/18/us/racism-sexism-atlanta-spa-shooting.html
• https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/03/cathy-park-hong-anti-asian-racism/618310/

Story "The Rooms of the Day" in Summerset Review!

 

A mountain chalet. A distant couple sharing small spaces. Mysterious backpacks and burning brussels sprouts. My new story, "The Rooms of the Day," is out now with Summerset Review!

Four years ago, I got that finger-ends buzzing inspiration at a gallery opening in Zurich where this artist's sketches of the rooms in his house covered an entire wall. Since then, I've re-written it three times, workshopped it twice. Some stories are triple-barrel scotch. Others are Beaujolais. All taste great but this one needed the ageing/editing.

Thank you to Joseph Levens, editor of Summerset Review! Read the story here.

Poem "Sky Burial" in Poetry Northwest's 60th Anniversary

A slice of Tibet in the great Northwest. Check out my poem "Sky Burial" in the 60th anniversary issue of Poetry Northwest. Can't believe my name is on that gorgeous cover, and in awe of all the amazing poems mine is wedged between. I kept reading it weeks after, in the tram, by the lake, at the Vevey wine festival (left). Because what is wine without poetry?

www.poetrynw.org/summer-fall-2019-2/

Story "How to Catch a Sun" in Wigleaf & Nominated for Pushcart!

My story “How to Catch a Sun” about life after an eclipse is now out with Wigleaf Journal. Bonus: it’s nominated for the Pushcart Prize! It follows one woman's life across six decades, a couple of wars and two continents - all in about 800 words.

When I first got the yes from Wigleaf, I was visiting a lighthouse in Provincetown, and started jumping up and down, then ran over to Norman Mailer’s grave to jump some more. Why was I jumping? I’ve been addicted to their perfect little bundles of fiction for years, and they’re all perfect because of Scott Garson' sharp editorial eye.

Double bonus: they’ve included a delirious postcard written on the plane on my way back from Nigeria.

Pushcart Nomination from Writers Resist

A skyscraper-sized thank you to Writers Resist for nominating my poem "Market Value" for the Pushcart. I wrote this poem two years ago and workshopped it in Jamie McKendrick's class with Geneva Writers Group, and now it has been made part of a resistance. Feeling a wave of light just thinking about it.

People of words, of art, of strength, whatever form your resistance takes, please submit to the Writers Resist collective. We need your voice.

Read the poem here.

Poem "Market Value" in Writers Resist

On a fall day in 2015, the Chinese stock market dropped, which triggered a fall in all the other markets. I started thinking about the over financialization of our global economy. I started thinking about vegetable markets. I started thinking about what I knew then and how little I know now. Then this poem came.

Read "Market Value" on Writers Resist.

Story "The Sudden" in Wigleaf's 2017 Longlist

Last night I had the writerly blues. After a whole day of being at a standstill with my novel, feeling like I didn’t know anything about anything, and couldn’t write a single sentence worth a damn - I ended up binge watching Forensic Files on Netflix because there’s nothing like disturbing true crime stories to make you feel even worse. Then this morning, woke up to surprising better-than-bacon news: my Icelandic short story “The Sudden” made it on this year’s Wigleaf Longlist!

When it was first published with apt Magazine, it was already a joy to be alongside such beautiful and brilliant work, plus Carissa and Randolph are two of the loveliest, most compassionate and dedicated writers/editors/justice-fighters you’ll ever meet. I’m lucky that my bout of creative pessimism was disproved so quickly (thank you Wigleaf!) but it’s a nice reminder to work through the darkness,  to withhold judgment while holding yourself to a high standard. And make your Netflix choices wisely.

Congratulations to all the Wigleaf Top 50 winners!

Story "The Lady Clock" in decomP Magazine

My story “The Lady Clock” is out with decomP Magazine! I wrote this after I went to pick up my orchid from a friend who kindly took care of it during the holidays, and discovered the difficulties of walking down the street with a potted plant. Now that orchid has a home with another dear friend and Granita the cat. Super excited because I’ve been a big fan of decomP for years, they’ve won Best of the Net and other awards and are just perpetually awesome. And how cool is this "time lapse" cover art for the February issue?

Read the story at decomP

My Icelandic short story "The Sudden" in apt Magazine

My short story set in Reykjavik has just come out with apt Magazine! I wrote this after visiting Harpa Concert Hall a year ago and was struck by the beehive architecture. Read here.

Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik

Actually, I dare anyone to go to dark magical light-filled Iceland and NOT feel compelled to write a story.