Talk:Amy Tan

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how old was amy tan when she wrote the joy luck club?

I think it was published in '89, so she was 37, I suppose. Everyking 16:39, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 Thought She Was Dead 2 An American Writer 3 grandmother committing suicide 4 psychiatrist falling asleep??? 5 Video Interview with Amy Tan

[edit] Thought She Was Dead

I could have sworn this woman died within the past couple of years during cosmetic surgery. Or was that someone else?

MSTCrow 13:39, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC)

Nope, that was Olivia Goldsmith, author of The First Wives Club. Amy Tan is still living. RedRollerskate 18:35, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] An American Writer

Amy Tan prefers to be known as an American, not Chinese-American, writer. This is as noted in her autobiography, "The Opposite of Fate", written in 2003.

Gillian, Scotland

I edited the beginning of the article to reflect this important change, also based on information from Tan's website (www.amytan.net). Bapb 15:23, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I like the intro. On the hand, one could also mention that she prefers not be known as a Chinese-American writer... what do you think? --Ibn Battuta 20:49, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Whether she likes it or not, she is of Chinese descent. There is no problem with her calling herself American but her Chinese descent should be mentioned somewhere in the intro. If no one has any objections, I'm changing this. --Wikipope 19:53, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] grandmother committing suicide

Tan's mother witnessed her own mother commit suicide. It's probably a good guess that that's where Tan got the inspiration for the one character in her book The Joy Luck Club.Jlujan69 00:41, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

It's explained in The Opposite of Fate as well. Tan actually asks her mother about her grandfather, and her mother says that she was the first wife and died in an accident. Tan changes the details to make it more dramatic, which happens to be the real truth of what happens to her grandmother. Hbdragon88 05:07, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] psychiatrist falling asleep???

That psychiatrist story sounds very much like an urban legend. I've taken it out, if someone can provide a reliable source, we can still put it back in. Amy Tan has tied at least her career as a non-fiction writer to quite different motivations. --Ibn Battuta 20:48, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Video Interview with Amy Tan

I'm a professor/writing center director at Oklahoma State University, Tulsa. Last Sunday I posted a link to a one-hour public television interview with Amy Tan. One editor allowed it, another deleted it, citing conflict of interest. It's true that, with sponsorship help from non-profit agencies, I produced the program for public television, but I received no money for it. One of our sponsors of the show is the National Endowment for the Humanities, and they only underwrite public service programs. Also, since the show was aired and produced for a PBS affiliate, we have to abide by a strict no advertising policy. So this and other programs in the series have already passed some very stringent litmus tests when it come to ethics.

If you visit writetv.org, you'll see that this is a university site and that all sponsors are non-profit foundations. Our reason for doing the site, and the reason we want to share it with Wikipedia as an external link, is that there are very few interviews available for most of the writers featured, so our site, like yours, is a great research tool for students.

Ironically, you'll notice that there is already one public tv link for Amy Tan, and it seems arbitrary to allow one and not another.

Again, our interest is only in promoting research of the authors we've interviewed, and we hope you'll your community will reconsider. Tmillerok (talk) 15:41, 1 March 2009 (UTC)