52. Borders, politics, and identity through nature writing: Jessica J. Lee (author of "Dispersals") (Live on April 11, 2025)

British-Canadian-Taiwanese writer Jessica J. Lee (李潔珂) is the author of three books of nature writing, Dispersals (2024), Two Trees Make a Forest (2019), and Turning (2017), the children’s book A Garden Called Home (2024), and co-editor of the essay collection Dog Hearted (2023). She has a PhD in Environmental History and Aesthetics and is the founding editor of The Willowherb Review. She teaches creative writing at the University of King’s College in Canada. She lives in Berlin.

This episode was recorded live on April 11th, 2025 in Taipei, Taiwan. The evening was co-organized by the Czech Hub in Taiwan, and moderated by Korean-American writer, Esther Kim. 

About Czech Hub in Taiwan - Launched in 2023, this gathering space in Taipei hosts monthly forums on policy, security, and business. It’s curated by the European Values Center for Security Policy and the Czech-Taiwanese Business Chamber. Sign up for its newsletter, Indo-Pacific Currents:https://europeanvalues.cz/en/newsletters/

About the Moderator - Esther Kim is a writer living in Taiwan. She is the first and former Digital Communications Manager of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, a major literary nonprofit in NYC. She joined the Workshop as a magazine editor. Before that, she worked on staff at book publishers with an international perspective and received her Masters degrees at SOAS, London and at Edinburgh. She writes a column for The Korea Times and is working on publishing a family heirloom into an art book.

About the Conversation - Two Trees Make a Forest is a memoir on Jessica’s journey searching for her family roots in Taiwan. The latest title, Dispersals, is a collection of fourteen essays on the interconnectedness of the lives of plants and the human world. This evening, Jessica and Esther spoke about soy, swimming, nature writing and its relations to politics and anthropology, and writing for the diaspora community.

Jessica is interested in investigating the gaps in the identity of plants and their cultural significance. While soy - a plant she writes about in Dispersals - is valued by her family as a source of food while growing up in Canada, she often heard anti-soy narratives outside of home.

Jessica discusses the significance of addressing political and societal issues in natural writings. 

“We're living in this moment of biodiversity crisis, climate change,” she says. “And these are things that disproportionately impact the people who have contributed to those problems the least… So it doesn't really make sense for nature writers who purport to be writing about those crises and the sort of fallout from them, to not also address the human cost, the cultural framings that get us to that place.”

Jessica cites Taiwanese writer Wu Ming-yi and American anthropologist Anna Tsing as writing influences. 

Ghost Island Media first interviewed Jessica J. Lee in August 2020 for the podcast Waste Not Why Not. Check out this episode here: https://ghostisland.media/zh/shows/waste-not-why-not/jessica-j-lee

Jessica J. Lee’s publication links:

Dispersals (2024) - https://www.jessicajleewrites.com/dispersals
Mandarin as《離散的植物》 - https://www.cite.com.tw/book?id=100902
Two Trees Make a Forest (2020) - .css-j9qmi7{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:2.8rem;width:100%;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:start;justify-content:start;padding-left:5rem;}@media only screen and (max-width: 599px){.css-j9qmi7{padding-left:0;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;}}.css-j9qmi7 svg{fill:#27292D;}.css-j9qmi7 .eagfbvw0{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;color:#27292D;}