this is for mẹ

"Her perfume is a blend of tiger balm and knock-off Chanel. Her steps are slow, but her eyes are animated. Her grey hair unveils the full life she has led, while her skin is marked  and shriveled by hardship.:

Bạn Bè is an homage to friendships, my family who are my best friends, my community, and my future pals I’ll make along the way as I continue to spread Việt love by way of not-too-sweet sweets here in New York City, and beyond.

Lynn Nguyen Boland shares a poetic homily to her mother, meditating on memories of mothering and the complexities of belonging, heritage, language and home.

Somewhere between this love-hate-consume-inserting dynamics, and somewhere between my coming of age, somewhere in my lung-full of drowsy cries, I defied the things I love. A reversion. The flip one must do to serve râu câu.

"Oh, sure. I mean, it isn’t very spacious, my womb. Always been a little too small. Suffocating, even."

I like making really tiny zines and the challenge of trying to express big ideas like love, loss and heartbreak with very few words, images and pages. It feels like I am writing a haiku or a poem, or trying to work through a puzzle.