Novelist Celeste Ng on the Big Power of Little Things

Modern Love

The New York Times

Nytimes, Redemption, Society & Culture, New York Times, Love, Essay, Storytelling, Loss, Nyt

4.4 • 8.7K Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2024

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Before Celeste Ng became a best-selling author, she had a side hustle selling miniatures on eBay — dollhouse-size recreations of food were her specialty. Even after the publication of “Little Fires Everywhere,” “Everything I Never Told You,” and, most recently, “Our Missing Hearts,” Celeste still makes tiny things — now, as a hobby. She’s come to realize the parallels between making small things and writing: Both give her a chance to look closely at the world. Today, Celeste kicks off our special podcast series, which celebrates 20 years of the Modern Love column, by reading Betsey MacWhinney’s essay “Bringing a Daughter Back From the Brink With Poems.” She discusses her own deep-rooted relationship to poetry — and the lessons, large and small, that poems can offer parents and children in uncertain times.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Love now and
0:04.0	stronger than anything.
0:05.0	Love was stronger than anything.
0:08.0	And I love you more than anything.
0:11.0	There's still love.
0:13.0	From the New York Times, I'm Anna Martin.
0:17.0	This is Modern Love.
0:19.0	And today, we're starting a special series in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Modern Love column.
0:25.6	Longtime listeners will remember the early days of this podcast when we had actors read Modern
0:30.4	Love essays.
0:32.0	And I want to be really clear when I say actors I mean like
0:34.7	household name red carpet walkin actors. So we're bringing that concept back with a bit of
0:42.0	a twist.
0:43.3	For the rest of the season, you're going to hear actors read essays,
0:46.2	but you're also going to hear from musicians, writers, filmmakers,
0:50.8	relationship experts, all kinds of creative and brilliant people who are thinking
0:55.4	about love and making art about it.
0:58.3	Kicking us off today is writer Celeste Ing.
1:02.0	She's the author of three best-selling books, you may have heard of them,
1:04.8	everything I never told you, Little Fires Everywhere, and most recently Our Missing Hearts.
1:11.3	Now I know that Celeste is acclaimed in the literary fiction world, but the thing
1:15.6	about our books is they're also absolutely engrossing. I actually, it's kind of embarrassing,
	...

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