Writers' Corner  Jonathan Tel  2012 Prose  Author's Statement
Chekhov wrote: "A writer should be destitute. He should know
he'll die of hunger if he doesn't write, if he gives into his
laziness. Writers should be put on chain-gangs and forced to
write … Oh how I thank Fate that I was so poor in my youth!"
Elsewhere he wrote, to the contrary, that writers need financial
security. The dialectic is the point.  I'm always slightly
baffled when anybody likes my writing, and equally baffled when
anybody does not. I'm grateful to the National Endowment for the
Arts for giving me money and confidence. There is more for me to
write about China.  Excerpt from The Beijing of Possibilities
She can't imagine ever leaving Hainan. The sand, the sky, the
coconut palms, the sea yes, the sea above all. The sea is always
there. It's alien, unknowable, and doesn't necessarily love her,
but it's there. The sea is her mother.  Then again, what does
she want? How should she know? The man is right: thousands of
people are eager to