“I want people to have the experience of being with this family as they go through a few crazy, hectic, somewhat dysfunctional days around Christmas time in the first half of the book,” Chang said.
BARNES AND NOBLE APPLETON TRIAL
The second half, titled “The World Sees Them,” follows the trial of one of the three sons for the murder of their father.Ĭhang said there are two different messages she wants people to think about after reading both halves of the book. Set in the Midwest in the Chao family’s Americanized Chinese restaurant, the story’s first half, titled “They See Themselves,” leads up to the death of the family’s tyrannical father. She added that she was able to get back into the writing process over the last six years. Klaus legacy at the UI, Nonfiction Writing ProgramĬhang’s new book, The Family Chao, was released in February, but had been put on the backburner since she became the workshop’s director, she said. Though her parents encouraged her to go into medicine or science, something more practical in their eyes, she stuck with her passion for writing, which she pursued throughout her 20s. “I feel that the university has been very supportive of writing and writers all along, and that I was given permission to think about taking the program in a direction that would include writers from many backgrounds to make it possible for their stories to be told,” Chang said.Ĭhang said she dreamed of being a writer since she was only 4 years old - before she could even read. When she was a student in the 90s, the fiction program was largely made up of white men.
Sixteen years ago, Chang made history when she was selected to be the director of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, not only as the first woman, but also the first Asian American to hold the position.
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