Lily Hoang, an experimental fiction writer, read some of her work to a crowd of about 25 people on January 22nd at Auntie’s Bookstore in Spokane.
She started her first reading with what she called the fun stuff. This included short stories out of her book including “The Coupon Thief,” “Getting Off,” “The Tarp,” “The Devil One,” and “The Devil Two.”
“She inspires me to write,” said Sam Ligon, Head of the EWU Get Lit! Program.
In “Missing Oven,” Hoang portrays a spin on the fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel, who are trying to figure out how to cook while stuck in the witch’s house.
These readings in particular brought much laughter from the crowd.
Hoang then moved onto her 4th, soon-to-come, nonfiction book, which she did not release the title of and that shared some of the most intimate moments of her past.
This section of the essay included her emotionally abusive ex-husband Chris and her cheating ex-boyfriend Harold.
The essay also described her sister’s struggle with drug abuse that lead to her death, along with Hoang’s own insecurities that her past relationships left her with.
Hoang went into detail about her draining marriage and how she would grind her teeth every night. “Now I don’t grind my teeth at night, but when I wake up my jaw is still sore,” Hoang read out of her newest essay, describing the lasting effect that her ex-husband had on her life.
These insecurities were also fueled by her father making comments about her being overweight.
The essays jumped from tragedy to what her boss, Ricky, described as self-pity.
“My boss didn’t like my writing,” Hoang said, “but I figured since they were winning awards, I should stick with this style.”
While she was writing her essay, she claims to have deleted the file five times before she finally wrote something that she was confident in.
“I have never been to any of these visiting writer events before,” Sydney Porter, EWU senior, said, “but now that I’ve heard her talk, I want to go to more of these events and read some of her books.”
Hoang described non-fiction writing as being more freeing. “There is more room. I enjoy the real desire for adding in vulnerability and truth.”
She described how her brain moves in little pieces, which she described her newest essay along with the influences of fairy tales.
The advice that she gave to students was to play with writing. “Many think that being miserable makes good art. That is not true. Have fun with your writing.”
