Alice Wong - Year of the Tiger

When I answered my , I said I am the greatest love of my life. It would be logical at this point to thank myself for holding my shit together during the writing and editing of this book. Thank you, Alice, for recognizing two years ago that it was time to be bold like a tiger and propose a memoir with your year approaching in 2022. Thank you for looking back and ahead while living through an interminable pandemic that pushed you to the brink. Thank you for making the time to sit, think, dream, rage, and laugh. You did it, bitch! Now good luck promoting the fuck out of it.

The real truth is that this book is a collective endeavor and there are many people to recognize. First, my parents, Henry and Bobby, and my sisters, Emily and Grace. The Wongs are such a weird and funny family. They give me a sense of security and support that allows me the freedom to be my extra, extra self. My family has been there from the very beginning and made my life possible. My friends (who know who they are) have been awesome as they rooted for me and gave me the space to grumble, to freak out, and to moan and groan about the process from beginning to end. The genuine enthusiasm from friends for the release of Year of the Tiger kept me going and washed away moments of self-doubt, since writing and editing can be very lonely experiences.

I did not share drafts of the manuscript with many people, but there are six people who took the time to review specific parts and who offered invaluable feedback: Ryan Easterly, Yomi Wrong, Ellen D. Wu, Jaipreet Virdi, Emily Nusbaum, and Alyssa Burgart. Thank you for answering my questions, suggesting edits, and catching some inaccuracies that would have mortified me! There are three people who unknowingly intervened and changed the shape of several chapters. Those chapters deepened significantly thanks to David Masumoto, Nora Shen, and Dixie Shrock, who reached out to me through letters, emails, and texts. I am lucky to be connected to all three of you.

My anthology, Disability Visibility, does not contain any artwork, but with this memoir I wanted to stretch myself and have as much fun as possible. Initially I attempted to doodle a few sketches, but I ended up using the Canva app with its fancy fonts and stock images to create various graphics throughout the chapters. I am particularly proud of . I used the Procreate app to handwrite the section titles with an Apple Pencil on an iPad mini. These tools contributed to the book along with ye olde reliable laptop. Thank you, apps, hardware, and high-speed internet.

Thank you to the artists and the owners of numerous photos and illustrations who gave permission for their inclusion in Year of the Tiger. I also wanted to tell some stories visually and commissioned four fantastic artists who made this book a delight: Sam Schfer, Hatiye Garip, Lizartistry, and Felicia Liang. Support these artists if you can!

I am fortunate to work with an amazing group of people from Vintage Books. I collaborated with my fantastic cat-loving editor, Anna Kaufman, for a second time, along with editorial assistant Zuleima Ugalde. Our discussions as the book developed were full of care and the best intentions. The design, typefaces, and layout of the book are thanks to Andy Hughes, head of production; Christopher Zucker, associate director of design; and Debbie Glasserman, interior designer, who made all the visual elements I added look less janky. As a person who struggles with verb-tense usage and who has a tendency to use all caps and em dashes, I am thankful for Kayla Overbey, production editor; Nancy B. Tan, copy editor; and proofreaders Kathy Strickman and Diana Drew. Blessed are the detail-oriented people who are on it and keep things on time! A book, no matter how interesting, needs to reach an audience. Many thanks to publicist Julie Ertl and marketer Sophie Normil, who have helped spread the Good Word of Year of the Tiger to the masses. Thanks also to cover designer Madeline Partner for a beautiful exterior that reflects the ferocity that is this memoir. I look forward to working with many of these fine folks again on my upcoming anthology, Disability Intimacy.

There are three more individuals in publishing who I want to highlight: Julia Kardon, Catherine Tung, Jenn Baker, and Rosalie Morales Kearns. My literary agent, Julia Kardon of H.G. Literary, has had my back since my first book proposal. She repeatedly explains (with patience) the details of my contracts and answers my inane questions about the business. She believes in me as a writer/editor and wants to help me fulfill all my ambitions. Julia is also a cat person, which is a sign of her excellence. Catherine Tung was an editor at Vintage Books in 2018; she emailed me out of the blue, asking if I had any interest in editing an anthology. Thanks to Catherines initial contact and her work as an editor during the first half of Disability Visibilitys publication process, I got the opportunity to become an author/editor of three bookssomething forty-year-old Alice couldnt imagine. Jenn Bakerwriter, podcaster, and senior editor at Amistad Bookswas someone I followed on Twitter for several years. I learn about all the best books, new writers of color, and the inner workings of the publishing industry from her. Jenn has been so generous with her time and professional expertise. I consider her a friend and a mentor as I try to push for greater disability diversity in publishing and figure out my next steps in world domination. Rosalie Morales Kearns, the founder of Shade Mountain Press, was another person, like Jenn, who demystified many aspects of the publishing world to me long before I had a book deal with Vintage. I still have a lot to learn!

Finally, I want to give a shout-out to my snail child, Augustus the Slow. A garden snail (Cornu aspersum), Augustus joined the Wong family in fall 2021 as the ideal low-maintenance pandemic pet. Watching Augustus slowly munch a piece of napa cabbage or hang upside down, motionless, in a glass habitat for hours brings great contentment. Feeding, observing, and caring for Augustus taught me that doing nothing is everything. Augustus is no longer alive, but I know he lived well. We could all learn a lot from Augustus.

• Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century
• Disability Visibility: 17 First-Person Stories for Today (Adapted for Young Adults)

Year of the Tiger

Alice Wong is a disabled activist, media maker, and research consultant based in San Francisco, California. She is the founder and director of the Disability Visibility Projectan online community dedicated to creating, sharing, and amplifying disability media and cultureand the editor of the anthology Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century and Disability Visibility: 17 First-Person Stories for Today (Adapted for Young Adults). Alice is also the host and coproducer of the Disability Visibility podcast and copartner in a number of collaborations such as #CripTheVote and Access Is Love. From 2013 to 2015, Alice served as a member of the National Council on Disability, an appointment by President Barack Obama. She is currently working on her next anthology, Disability Intimacy, forthcoming from Vintage Books.

@SFdirewolf

disabilityvisibilityproject.com

ARTWORK BY HATIYE GARIP