Movable Worlds by Emily Ding

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Dear readers, being able to take you with me every step of the way means a great deal. Please subscribe if you would like to receive more letters like these in your inbox. Thank you! 🩵

What I'm Thinking About

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Turning another page
Feeling a creative shift, willing myself to begin again...
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Emily Ding
2
Watching Gaza
On ceasefire, condemnations, and the deterioration of language.
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Emily Ding
Ways of Writing
Can travel writing be redeemed? An essay based on a reading of Tim Hannigan's Travel Writing Tribe: Journeys in Search of a Genre.
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Emily Ding
Waggle dancing
A tentative first step in discovering new stories for the table: on growing, eating, and sharing food equitably in a rapidly warming world.
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Emily Ding
1

Digests

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Findings, vol. 5
Impressions from Kuala Lumpur + letters new and old + readings + joy, wherever it is found. (Plus: a companion letter for paid subscribers.)
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Emily Ding
3
Findings, vol. 4
Postcards from Singapore + letters new and old + readings + joy, wherever it is found.
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Emily Ding
2
Findings, vol. 3
A digest of recent letters, readings + joy, wherever it can be found.
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Emily Ding
1
Landmarkings #18
Notes on Oppenheimer "the great synthesiser" & readings on how we “see” the world and tell its stories.
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Emily Ding
1

Being in the World

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Recapturing memories in a place I loved before: a fool's quest?
On revisiting Nusa Penida, now that it's become a popular destination for crowds of daytrippers from mainland Bali. (Really an essay about rethinking…
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Emily Ding
Homing pigeon
A personal journey through the Chinatowns of Kolkata, London, and Guatemala City.
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Emily Ding
Remembering Sanmao, the Taiwanese travel writer who lived in the desert
She was born some eighty years ago today.
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Emily Ding
5
Meeting the year ahead
No real resolutions, as usual, but I'm hoping to reframe my perspective with a little help from writers and artists who have echoed my desires.
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Emily Ding
3
Out on my own again
It's been a while since, and it took me just a bit of time to feel like my old self.
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Emily Ding

Making Sense of the World

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Surprising transmissions
Unexpected ways in which viruses and other pathogens have spread and infected us + notes on zoonoses. (A companion letter to a story I wrote last year.)
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Emily Ding
Living in a world not of our own making
On Abang Adik and the tragedy of statelessness in Malaysia & what fiction may do, differently from journalism, for social justice. (Plus: a companion…
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Emily Ding
Watching Gaza
On ceasefire, condemnations, and the deterioration of language.
 • 
Emily Ding
Writing about the vivid “waving” frog that vanished suddenly
An ode to the Chiriqui harlequin frog, and how to think and tell stories about species extinctions.
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Emily Ding
Jason Brooke: "Certainly, I would consider the Brookes Sarawakian"
Q&A: From a descendant of the White Rajahs: a Bornean tale for Hollywood, finding identity and opportunity in a family legacy, and grappling with…
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Emily Ding

The Great Affair

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Rebecca Chew: "I think being an outsider, or having that perspective, helps"
Q&A: An art director on moving from Malaysia to the U.S. for a dream job at the start of the pandemic, the differences in being a creative here and…
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Emily Ding
Mabel Ho: “I still flirt with the idea of leaving. But that dream plays to a different tune now.”
Guest essay: After years imagining what her exit plan would look like, A Malaysian finally comes to terms with her choice to remain.
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Emily Ding
Wael Qarssifi: "Everyone saying what they think, out of love, is an act of activism"
Q&A: A Syrian refugee journalist in Malaysia on piecing together a life for himself in exile in Kuala Lumpur, and reconciling his feelings for his…
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Emily Ding
Abby Seiff: "The water failing them, they take to the land"
Dispatch from Cambodia + Q&A: A journalist tells the story of the stateless Vietnamese forced to leave their floating homes on the Tonle Sap.
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Emily Ding
Travis Criddle: "I walked with an open mind and heart, and no plans"
Q&A: An American acquaintance from my early backpacking days talks about everything that has taken him to his new home along Italy’s Via Francigena.
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Emily Ding
Dear readers, being able to take you with me every step of the way means a great deal. Please subscribe if you would like to receive more letters like these in your inbox. Thank you! 🩵

Writer's Notebook

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A companion to: Living in a world not of our own making
Thinking about how Abang Adik worked the death penalty into its plot made me reconsider how to write a piece of short fiction I've been trying to…
 • 
Emily Ding
Living in a world not of our own making
On Abang Adik and the tragedy of statelessness in Malaysia & what fiction may do, differently from journalism, for social justice. (Plus: a companion…
 • 
Emily Ding
Turning another page
Feeling a creative shift, willing myself to begin again...
 • 
Emily Ding
2
Landmarkings #18
Notes on Oppenheimer "the great synthesiser" & readings on how we “see” the world and tell its stories.
 • 
Emily Ding
1
Landmarkings #17
Notes & readings on how we “see” the world and tell its stories.
 • 
Emily Ding
1
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Photo Diaries

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One season into the next
Photodrop: Autumn–winter, Germany (mostly Berlin), 2023
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Emily Ding
KL, already nostalgia-tinged
Photodrop: Glimpses of KL, 2015-
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Emily Ding
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