Amy Lin — "Grief is a problem of narrative."

Slow Stories

What does it mean to grieve? What does it look and feel like? Why is it still so hard for us to understand? These are just a few questions Amy Lin tackles in her astounding memoir Here After. In a series of crystalline vignettes, Amy recounts the unexpected death of her husband Kurtis, her subsequent medical crisis—and the winding journey to live after inconceivable loss.

In many ways, Here After is a story of falling—in love, apart, out of time. It's a story that alerts us to our hearts and heartbreaks. It's a story that asks the big, unanswerable questions, but perhaps most poignantly, it asks readers to be here—to bear witness. As Amy writes in the book: "I do not say: Everyone is so afraid of grief, and this fear is dangerous to the grieving. I do not tell him the painful lesson I am learning: Enduring the thing itself—he is not coming back—is unbearable but denying it is worse, is an even greater, even more insidious, threat to living, if that is what you want to do."

In this interview, Amy shared more about the value of seriousness in life, her thoughts on slow storytelling and creativity, and what time means to her now. This episode also opens with a story from Julie Chavez.

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Episode Transcript: https://slowstoriespodcast.com/amy-lin/

Follow Slow Stories on Substack: https://slowstories.substack.com/

Purchase Here After: https://bookshop.org/p/books/here-after-a-memoir-amy-lin/20214421?ean=9781958506325/

Purchase Everyone But Myself: https://bookshop.org/p/books/everyone-but-myself-a-memoir-julie-chavez/19726158?ean=9781958506059/

Follow Amy: @literaryamy

Follow Julie: @juliewriteswords

Follow Rachel: @rachelschwartzmann

Pre-order SLOWING: https://bookshop.org/p/books/slowing-discover-wonder-beauty-and-creativity-through-slow-living-rachel-schwartzmann/21201888?ean=9781797223759