Lindsay Wong: The Woo-Woo
In this jaw-dropping, darkly comedic memoir, a young woman comes of age in a dysfunctional Asian family who blame their woes on ghosts and demons when they should really be on anti-psychotic meds.
Lindsay Wong grew up with a paranoid schizophrenic grandmother and a mother who was deeply afraid of the “woo-woo” — Chinese ghosts who come to visit in times of personal turmoil. From a young age, she witnessed the woo-woo’s sinister effects; when she was six, Lindsay and her mother avoided the dead people haunting their house by hiding out in a mall food court, and on a camping trip, in an effort to rid her daughter of demons, her mother tried to light Lindsay’s foot on fire.
The eccentricities take a dark turn, however, and when Lindsay starts to experience symptoms of the woo-woo herself, she wonders whether she will suffer the same fate as her family.
At once a witty and touching memoir about the Asian immigrant experience and a harrowing and honest depiction of the vagaries of mental illness, The Woo-Woo is a gut-wrenching and beguiling manual for surviving family, and oneself.
Yugumalleq: A film by MFA Candidate Kavelina Torres
Congratulations to MFA Candidate Kavelina Torres, whose short film Yugumalleq / Shades of Life will air in United States Indian Country and on PBS stations across the US on August 5th, 2018 at 4:30 pm PST (7:30 pm EST).
Kavelina Torres
Kavelina is a Sundance Native Film and an Alaska Native Playwright’s Program alumna. Her film, Yugumalleq, resides with First Nations Experience (FNX) for PBS television programming. Her play, Something in The Living Room, debuted in April 2018 Vancouver, BC, to raise funds for safe injection sites.