Mimi Khúc

👀 holy shit @seoyoung.jennie.chu writes a stunning review in @lareviewofbooks thank you for reading #DEARELIA with your whole heart, Seo-Young. and thank you for letting all of us be unwell with you. I am so grateful for your generosity and care. may we all hold each other through the emergencies and unwellnesses of this life. link in bio @dukeuniversitypress [LA Los Angeles Review of Books RB Differentially Unwell: On Mimi Khúc's "dear elia" by Seo-Young Chu • March 5, 2024 To my 21-year-old self in spring 1999: I wish you could read dear elia. Then you would know that you are not alone. That your unwellness is not your fault. That you are allowed to feel ungrateful and angry at the forces that contribute to your unwellness. That the abyss engulfing you is shared by others who are also Asian Americanly wounded and suffering. Thankfully, a quarter of a century into the future, you will read dear elia. You will feel waves of visceral empathy for your younger self. You will weep, and the weeping will be cathartic. Unapologetically emotional, exuberantly unorthodox, fiercely compassionate, dear elia: Letters from the Asian American Abyss will save your life.]

introducing... the chapters of DEAR ELIA 😁 also: how amazing is the title design!!! birds courtesy of @matty_huynh , design by Aimee Harrison at @dukeuniversitypress 🔥🔥🔥 (bonus pts if you recognize the birds!) [5 images of the chapter titles with bold black titles and black silhouetted brush + ink birds, with teal tagline under each title, dear elia and @slothprof in the bottom right corners: 1 pedagogy of unwellness in which I tell you I make cool shit 2 touring the abyss in which students tell us how the university makes them sick 3 how to save your asian american life in an hour in which you learn how and why to be ungrateful to your parents 4 the professor is ill in which I tell you how the university makes all of us sick also: fuck UMD 5 teaching in pandemic times in which the pandemic shows us how shitty our teaching has been for our students and how we can human better]

mail brings treasures congrats @intifadabatata + @hannahmoushabeck !!!

when your 14yo asks you to quickly curate a list of books for AANHPI heritage month for the school library. this is what @lmbd.is.trouble and I ran around and grabbed around the house in 10 minutes that we thought high schoolers might enjoy (and need)! ❤️ @chenchenwrites Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency @bighedva How to Tell When We Will Die @yashicadutt Coming Out as Dalit @fancyrhino @baophi_writer @terisasiagatonu No'u Revilla We the Gathered Heat @thellpsx The Future is Disabled @pinkmantaray He/She/They @foofoofoo What My Bones Know @kavehakbar.kavehakbar Martyr! @writerbushra Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion @teabuoy The Best We Could Do (should I sneak a copy of dear elia on there?!) [a bookcase with 3 shelves displaying 10 forward-facing books]

my turn to teach! join me and my lovely TA @lmbd.is.trouble for a 6-week course on Asian American mental health and disability studies this summer! thank you to everyone who joined us in the Great Teach-in this past winter. to be able to facilitate learning grounded in care and political + ethical urgencies--and beholden to no institutions, only each other--was revelatory. we're excited to continue this transformative pedagogical journey with @asianamericanliteraryarchive and all of you! enroll now at link in QR or bio! scholarships available! *** ASIAN AMERICAN MENTAL HEALTH & DISABILITY STUDIES SUMMER 2026 mimi khúc & TA lawrence-minh bùi davis june 4 - july 6* (6 sessions) thursdays* 7-8:45pm ET / 4-5:45pm PT *last session on monday 7/6 instead of thurs 7/9 scholarship applications due May 2 enrollment closes June 3 This course asks both what the lens of mental health tells us about Asian American life and what Asian American life tells us about how we should understand mental health. It offers Asian American studies and disability studies approaches to mental health, locating issues of mental health within social, cultural, and historical contexts, including racism, ableism, model minoritization, sexual violence, immigration. And it takes an arts-based approach: course texts will focus on Asian American literary and artistic interventions, and course assignments will ask you to use humanistic and creative-critical methods. You will read and do cool shit. Ultimately we will use our study of mental health to figure out together how to survive the increasingly disabling environment we are living (and dying) in. This really should be the goal of any course you take--to give you skills for navigating your social world ethically and meaningfully--but this particular moment makes that project even more necessary and urgent. Welcome to the Asian American abyss.

I've had a virtual assistant for the last year and a half, and it has been life-changing. an access need I didn't know I needed because ableism (esp gendered ableism as a woman and mother) told me I should be able to do everything on my own. things I now have help on that may seem like small tasks but I had been muscling through unnecessarily: - calling to make, change, and cancel appts (I hate phone calls!) - adding/editing/removing said appts on my Google calendar - adding the kids' school calendars (for 3 diff schools!) to my Google calendar - organizing some of my inboxes (labels! color coded!) - invoicing and managing contracts for my gigs - creating flyers for social media - creating video clips (with captions!) for social media - updating my website - keeping track of all my travel, helping me book flights and lodging, creating visual itineraries for me for trips so I have confirmation numbers, hotel addresses, etc., all in one place on the day of travel. look how adorable they are!! - organizing my travel receipts for reimbursements--this one is huge!! I hate dealing with receipts. now I just take a photo immediately and send it to her while I'm traveling so I don't have to think about it anymore. - training on social media and other apps--she explains things to my old millennial ass!! there's more that I'm not remembering right now. you may think you don't need an assistant, but let me tell you, you do. you may also think you don't have things to hand over to an assistant--trust me, you do. I didn't think I did either but every day I find more things in my life that someone else could do for me that would help me drown a little less. I'm drowning, you're drowning, we're all drowning. just 5 or 10 hours a week of help makes such a difference. my assistant and her agency are looking for more clients--reach out to me if you might be interested! I'm happy to answer any questions. I can't recommend them enough!! [light pink and blue doc titled "mimi & lawrence go to Amherst" with various flight and lodging info, a reminder to keep receipts, and two cartoon sloths. my added commentary of "how adorable is this and this and this!"with arrows]

been wildly stress-crocheting. life is kicking my ass right now. just finished this asymmetrical scarf/shawl that I LOVE. think I'll get some ombre yarn to make another one... 🧶🧶🧶 also enjoy my kitty-ear glasses that I normally think of as sleepwear/PJs but now have to get used to wearing during the daytime because allergies are making contacts miserable. [selfie of me in glasses and a teal colored, loosely crocheted scarf draped around my neck and chest]

baked 90 donuts for daughter's musical closing night/cast + crew party!😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫🍩🍩🍩 • vanilla glazed • vanilla glazed with rainbow sprinkles • taro glazed with coconut • matcha glazed with rainbow sprinkles • GF + vegan triple chocolate • bonus: 75 cinnamon sugar donut holes! 10 hours over 2 days. 😵‍💫 maybe never again?! but I got to watch all 60 kids, some with food restrictions, descend upon them like feral animals and that was the reward. 🥰 [box of square donuts topped with mini rainbow sprinkles, box of square purple donuts topped with shredded coconut on the diagonal]

whose big head is that?? today at Yale!!! 🥰 PAN-ASIAN AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH 2026 KEYNOTE What Hurts? Tending to Our Unwellness with Collective Care Join us for an interactive session with author of dear elia: Letters from the Asian American Abyss (Duke University Press), Mimi Khúc as we explore her new creative-critical genre-bending book on mental health and a pedagogy of unwellness. For accommodations, please email [email protected]. Tuesday, March 3rd 4:30-5:30PM in LC102 Co-sponsored by: Asian American Cultural Center at Yale, The Good Life Center, Office of Restorative Practices, Asian Network at Yale, Asian Faculty Association at Yale. @aacc.yale

ok NOW we're pink! retoned this morning and pretty happy with it! 💖 [selfie from the nose up showing my pinkish blond hair with lights and books in the background]

@intifadabatata graces us with their presence and wisdom this week in the Great Teach-In! what a gift. [white and purple text over gray and pink background: Asian American Studies for Right Now: The Great Teach-in, with Poems Palestinian American poet George Abraham guest facilitates class this week!!! Join Thursday for the lessons + discussion on Gaza we all need. photo of person reading at a podium wearing a keffiyeh]

📣 we won a book award!!! 😳 thank you to AAAS and the jurors for recognizing this weird and wild book trying to say hard things and maybe save some lives. here's to being unwell together. 💖 ps. this one's for the adjuncts @dukeuniversitypress ASSOCIATION FOR ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES BOOK AWARDS INTERDISCIPLINARY/MULTIDISCIPLINARY Outstanding Contribution dear elia: Letters from the Asian American Abyss book cover wearing a crown next to a trophy, text in gold, pink, and light blue