windup
Writing
My thoughts, works, and stories
social issues
You don't actually know Charlie Kirk
On September 10, 2025, Charlie Kirk was assassinated at a Utah campus. His death triggered the usual cycle of outrage and debate.
grief
“Have you eaten?”
My grandma is dying. In truth, she’s been dying for years now, my months punctuated with hospital scares and
deconstruction
A voice shriveled in my throat
Linda Kay Klein’s Pure talks about the lack of unconditional love touted in white evangelicalism—how that has led to a culture of shame and fear, effects that are long-lasting, sometimes lifelong
deconstruction
My mother’s worn Bible
None of the adults explained death or suffering to us. Neither western Christians (specifically evangelicals) nor East Asians are well equipped to handle grief, let alone walk children through it.
All I could think was, where was God to let a child my age die?
deconstruction
Yes, in spite of everything
An honest reflection on walking away from God, living with uncertainty, and returning to faith 'kicking and screaming.
deconstruction
How fundamentalism nearly destroyed my relationship with God
I was a sophomore in college when I turned my back on the religion of my childhood and declared myself no longer a Christian.
grief
This is the fourth year since your son died
This is the fourth year since your son died.
You wonder where the time has gone, and wonder if it’d be cliche to say it sometimes still feels like yesterday.
social issues
I didn’t even want to be friends with her
People don’t fit into boxes. They’re too beautifully complex, filled with every colour we can and can’t see.
social issues
The Value of Life: Abortion, Adoption, and Agency
Our struggle seems to manifest in different ways: in our attempts to systematize complex moral decisions, our shifting language, our efforts to protect both individual agency and collective responsibility.
grief
Letters to the Forgotten Ones I Still Love
I suppose normally now would be the moment to place some epilogue of good feeling, of how I see the way God is working, how I’m sure it will all make sense one day, of the good that has come from it. But I do not, and I don’t know why, and in truth, no “why” could ever excuse or justify the pain.
intergenerational healing
"I have searched for my mother’s love in all corners of the world." -Annie Ernaux
Sometimes, healing never comes. Some mothers never apologise.
But sometimes healing begins after thirty years.
Sometimes, a mother says, “I’m sorry.”
social issues
Why Some Writers Carry Tasers and Pay to be Unfindable
I’ve intended to write on this topic for some time now—the risk of having a public online presence, that is. It’s one many of us are sadly all too familiar with: strangers acting in bad faith, taking your words out of context,
lotr2024
Corruption and Redemption
Guest post by Jenn Zuko
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Back in 2004, I taught a graduate-level literature course called ‘Hobbits and
lotr2024
Éowyn's Redemption from Despair to Hope
I’m also struck by the fact that once again, heroism in Tolkien’s story does not present the way it conventionally would in such stories, or in the way Éowyn understood heroism at the start of her journey.
She learns that it does not have to take her skill with a sword to make her a strong woman.
intentional life
Ways I Am Simplifying My Life in 2025
Dear Inklings,
I cannot believe we are now at the end of 2024. Last year, I shared the ways I
deconstruction
I Followed Jesus But My Life Didn't Get Better
My questions of why injustice and suffering exist have never been answered. Yet I found what I was looking for all along: God Himself.
motherhood
It Wasn’t Love At First Sight
The common narrative is that when you give birth, you fall in love with your baby at once.
In reality, this is a stranger you have to get to know, just like any other person. Sometimes, it’s love at first sight. Other times, it’s not.