Trigger Warning

Amy Tan was born on this day in 1952. Literary Heist challenges you, in the style of Amy Tan, to write a short story submission.

Works

  • The Joy Luck Club
  • Two Kinds

Awards

  • 1989, Finalist National Book Award for The Joy Luck Club
  • 1989, Finalist National Book Critics Circle Award for The Joy Luck Club
  • Finalist Los Angeles Times Fiction Prize
  • Bay Area Book Reviewers Award
  • Commonwealth Gold Award
  • American Library Association’s Notable Books
  • American Library Association’s Best Book for Young Adults
  • 2005-2006, Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature Honorable Mention for Saving Fish From Drowning
  • The Joy Luck Club selected for the National Endowment for the Arts’ Big Read
  • New York Times Notable Book
  • Booklist Editors Choice
  • Finalist for the Orange Prize
  • Nominated for the Orange Prize
  • Nominated for the International Dublin Literary Award
  • Audie Award: Best Non-fiction, Abridged
  • Parents’ Choice Award, Best Television Program for Children
  • Shortlisted British Academy of Film and Television Arts award, best screenplay adaptation
  • Shortlisted WGA Award, best screenplay adaptation
  • 1996, Academy of Achievement, Golden Plate Award

Quotes

  • If you can’t change your fate, change your attitude.
  • We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming – well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate.
  • Writing is an extreme privilege but it’s also a gift. It’s a gift to yourself and it’s a gift of giving a story to someone.
  • I did not lose myself all at once. I rubbed out my face over the years washing away my pain, the same way carvings on stone are worn down by water.
  • Who knows where inspiration comes from. Perhaps it arises from desperation. Perhaps it comes from the flukes of the universe, the kindness of the muses.
  • I am like a falling star who has finally found her place next to another in a lovely constellation, where we will sparkle in the heavens forever.
  • You see what power is – holding someone else’s fear in your hand and showing it to them!
  • It’s both rebellion and conformity that attack you with success.
  • I didn’t fear failure. I expected failure.
  • I was intelligent enough to make up my own mind. I not only had freedom of choice, I had freedom of expression.

Get more information about Amy Tan.

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