Issue 30 | New Book and Featured Essay by Grace Loh Prasad
"The way you know how your grandma’s house smells, the kind of oolong tea she drinks, her fondness for soft caramels and flashy orchids, but you don’t know how to write her name.…"
Welcome to KHÔRA, a dynamic online arts space produced in collaboration with Lidia Yuknavitch’s Corporeal Writing. Visit our Archive to read previous issues. Scroll down if you’d like your work to be considered for future issues.
KHÔRA is back after a brief break while I was away on parental leave. Thank you for your warm wishes! We’re thrilled to return with a new issue and a celebration.
Congratulations to Grace Loh Prasad (KHÔRA curated team member Issues 1-4, September 2020-January 2021) on the publication of her new book, The Translator’s Daughter (Mad Creek Books/The Ohio State University Press, 2024). Grace was part of our very first team of curated writers, and three of the essays she wrote during her time with KHÔRA appear in her acclaimed new collection.
Grace reflected on her time with KHÔRA and the impact on her essay collection, The Translator's Daughter:
Being part of the first curated writing team for KHÔRA was a dream come true. I truly enjoyed the collaboration with the other three writers, and though we each had very distinct voices we were all committed to this collective undertaking. We were six months into the pandemic when we started, and it's not an exaggeration to say that this little community helped sustain me through that extended period of isolation. KHÔRA also created space for me to do some of my best and most innovative writing that I am proud to include in The Translator's Daughter.
Pre-order The Translator’s Daughter here. Scroll down to read a new featured essay from Grace, Things That Can’t Be Translated.
If you love what you’re seeing in KHÔRA, please subscribe, share, tweet, retweet, and post, and highlights from the rest of Issue 30 will be back soon.
With galactic gratitude,
Leigh Hopkins
and the Corporeal/KHÔRA squad
Things That Can’t Be Translated by Grace Loh Prasad
The way you know how your grandma’s house smells, the kind of oolong tea she drinks, her fondness for soft caramels and flashy orchids, but you don’t know how to write her name.
Remembering the opening lines of an old Taiwanese folk song well enough to sing the words even if you don’t know exactly what they mean.
Being worried you won’t recognize the unlicensed private cab driver your parents send to pick you up from the airport, but Mr. Chen always recognizes you and makes cheerful one-way conversation in Taiwanese on the drive back…
Read Things That Can’t Be Translated on KHÔRA.
Grace Loh Prasad is the author of The Translator’s Daughter (Mad Creek Books/The Ohio State University Press, 2024), a debut memoir about living between languages, navigating loss, and the search for belonging. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Longreads, The Offing, Hyperallergic, Catapult, KHÔRA, and elsewhere. A member of the Writers Grotto and the AAPI writers collective Seventeen Syllables, Prasad lives in the Bay Area.
Swim around in KHÔRA.
Artists and Writers
We’re looking for our next teams! To enter KHÔRA’s collaborative waters:
Writers, read about KHÔRA’s 500 Words here.
Artists, send your artwork to KHÔRA's Images here.
Many thanks to all of you who have sent us work. Your words/images will always remain active in KHÔRA’s ocean, and you won’t ever receive a notice of rejection from us. We know this process is not perfect; we wish to stay open to the possibility that at any point, your work will be a fit for a curated issue or team collaboration.
If you love what you’re seeing, please subscribe, share, tweet, retweet, and post, and KHÔRA will be back soon.
With galactic gratitude,
Leigh Hopkins
and the Corporeal/KHÔRA squad