Kaila Yu joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about how she hated writing at first and has had an accidental career in it, how she had no intention of writing a memoir, selling a book on proposal and pitching off a timely event, racial and sexually motivated hate crime, Asian fetishization and the feeling of being other, her experience as a pin up model in the 90s, sexual assault and the flight, fight, fawn response, dismantling tropes, the male gaze, forms of erasure, internalized racism, putting it all out there, and her new memoir in essays Fetishized: A Reckoning with Yellow Fever, Feminism, and Beauty.
Also in this episode:
-feeling invisible
-shaping a book with an agent
-the marathon that is book promotion
Books mentioned in this episode:
Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong
My Body by Emily Ratajkowski
Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It by Kamal Ravikant
Kaila Yu is an author with bylines in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Los Angeles Times, Bon Appétit, Conde Nast Traveler, and many more.
Her debut memoir, ‘Fetishized: A Reckoning with Yellow Fever, Feminism, and Beauty,’ was published on August 19th, 2025, with Penguin Random House's Crown Publishing.
Connect with Kaila:
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/738645/fetishized-by-kaila-yu/
–
Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writer’s Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories.
She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Subscribe to Ronit’s Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank
Follow Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social
Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Male Room with Dr. Jesse Mills
As Director of The Men’s Clinic at UCLA, Dr. Jesse Mills has spent his career helping men understand their bodies, their hormones, and their health. Now he’s bringing that expertise to The Male Room — a podcast where data-driven medicine meets common sense. Each episode separates fact from hype, science from snake oil, and gives men the tools to live longer, stronger, and happier lives. With candor, humor, and real-world experience from the exam room and the operating room, Dr. Mills breaks down the latest health headlines, dissects trends, and explains what actually works — and what doesn’t. Smart, straightforward, and entertaining, The Male Room is the show that helps men take charge of their health without the jargon.