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Resounds: Jamie Ford

Jamie Ford at the YPR studios
Anna Paige
Jamie Ford at the YPR studios

Jamie Ford is the great-grandson of Nevada mining pioneer, Min Chung, who emigrated from Hoiping, China, to San Francisco in 1865, where he adopted the western name “Ford,” consequently confusing countless generations.

His debut novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, was released in 2010 and spent two and a half years on the New York Times bestseller list. Jamie’s latest novel, The Many Daughters of Afong Moy, was released in August 2022 by Atria Books.

The book is an exploration of what we inherit – not just genetically and in physical traits, but personality traits, historical traumas, joys, and depressive tendencies. The novel is also about inherited trauma.

The book’s core is Afong Moy, and her story line is wound around the stories of her six descendants. Afong Moy is based on a real person – the first Chinese woman to come to America in the mid-1800s. Her story is so unique in many ways, as Chinese women could not leave China at that time, and there was a practice as well of binding their feet.

Since its release the book has received tremendous praise. It was an instant New York Times Bestseller and a Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick.

An award-winning short-story writer, his work has been published in multiple anthologies, from Asian-themed steampunk set in Seattle in the Apocalypse Triptych, to stories exploring the universe of masked marvels and caped crusaders from an Asian American perspective in Secret Identities: The first Asian American Superhero Anthology and Shattered: The Asian American Comics Anthology. His other two novels are Songs of Willow Frost, and Love and Other Consolation Prizes. He’s also written in other genres: speculative, dystopia, crime noir, and middle-grade horror.

Corby Skinner is an independent marketing professional with an enormous capacity for assessing issues and creating positive, effective messages.
Anna Paige is a Montana-based journalist, poet and educator. She is originally from Wyoming and has lived in Billings for more than a decade, where she co-founded Young Poets, winner of the 2021 Library of Congress Award for Literacy.