Ange Seen Yang

“Centre for Stories not only gave me a seat at the table but also let me speak – with my authentic voice – and ensured that I’d be heard.”

Heartlines explores what it means to write – from the heart and soul – and where that writing takes us. Every writer’s journey is different, so we invite you to take a moment to read, pause and reflect on what it means to shape stories for the page.

Ange Seen Yang is a Perth/Boorloo-based writer, lawyer and congee enthusiast. She won the SBS Diversity in Food Media writing competition in 2022. Her writing has been featured in SBS Food, Gourmet Traveller, Colournary Magazine and Broadsheet. She is interested in how food connects individuals to their heritage and shapes their identities. When she’s not writing about food, she’s sharing personal essays about her family, suburbia and her 2000s iPod classic.

Centre for Stories: What are you currently reading?

Ange Seen Yang: I’m deep into essays and essayists at the moment, so I’ve got a few on the go. Yen-Rong Wong’s Me, Her, Us, Eda Gunaydin’s Root & Branch: Essays on Inheritance and Against Disappearance, edited by Leah Jing McIntosh and Adolfo Aranjuez.

I’m falling in love with the essay – and how writers play and subvert conventional ideas on form. I find myself continually drawn to reading about time, conversations with our past/ present and future selves and the act of recording family histories. Reading anthologies is also a great way to find new authors, which is always a joy!

CFS: What inspired you to pursue writing?

ASY: Like many writers, I’ve always been writing in some form – whether it be scribbles in notebooks or forgotten notes on my phone. What pushed me to start sharing my writing was the pandemic*, for two reasons. First, lockdown meant I could finally reclaim my time from the clutches of Transperth.

Second, in response to the anti-Asian (particularly East-Asian) sentiment, there was a huge upswell of writing and advocacy in the diaspora community. Their stories made me feel seen – the more I read, the more I believed there was a safe space and community to share stories like the ones I’d been hiding in my journal.

Maybe it’s also a symptom of being a 1.5-generation Malaysian-Australian. My family stories are shared verbally – around the dinner table, on a drive or over a chaotic phone call that starts with a grocery list and descends into an exhumation of some distant relative’s grievances.

Those stories aren’t written anywhere, and my abysmal Mandarin and Cantonese mean that something is ultimately lost. The link to my culture is tenuous at best. But, with the privilege of education and time, I hope I can record some of them and pass stories that capture a little piece of us to be passed down.

I write to share my story and to amplify the stories of others. Of course, it’s also good fun – a form of escape and play!

*if you’re reading this in the far-flung future, I mean the COVID-19 pandemic of 2019 onwards. I hope there hasn’t been another one.

CFS: Is there a particular book that changed your life?

ASY: A close tie between Growing Up Asian in Australia (edited by Alice Pung) and New Voices on Food Vol 1 (edited by Lee Tran Lam).

CFS: What inspired you to join the Writing Change, Writing Inclusion program?

ASY: I’ve followed the Centre for Stories for a long time and seen how they’ve championed local writers from a diverse range of backgrounds. Having been to their events, book launches and workshops, I’d seen the supportive and electric community they’ve grown over the years. They aren’t afraid to push the envelope and are always coming up with interesting events for the community.

After devouring Under the Paving Stones, the Beach in one sitting, I fell in love with the voices featured there – honestly, it felt like I’d met previous mentees. I knew that if I wanted to start writing, the Centre for Stories would be the place where my voice would be encouraged.

To put it simply, there’s a difference between having a seat at the table and being able to speak at the table. Centre for Stories not only gave me a seat at the table but also let me speak – with my authentic voice – and ensured that I’d be heard.

CFS: How has having your mentor, Kaya Ortiz, shaped your writing so far?

ASY: Immensely! Three words come to mind: clarity, confidence and commitment.

Kaya helped me find clarity through the numerous threads I was trying to weave in my essays. They gave me the confidence to write beyond what I was familiar with (food) and explore these ideas I’d had fumbling around in my mind – ideas on family history, identity and time. Commitment – during times when writing was tough, they walked me through practical tips on how to get going again, inviting me time and time again to commit to writing when I could, in whatever capacity I could for that day.

I’m so thankful to have a mentor who was generous with their knowledge and kind (and insightful) with their feedback. I mean, we’re all sensitive about our writing; otherwise, we wouldn’t be writers!

CFS: Briefly describe a piece you were working on during your mentorship that you are excited about.

ASY: I’m working on an essay that spans my childhood dinner table in Perth, the train lines of Hong Kong and grocery stores. It explores the idea of shame associated with losing and learning a language. I’m still hammering out details, but it’s the first time I’ve played with form, quotes and Hanzi. I hope it’s a small step towards my dream of writing a multi-generational memoir in essay form!

Writing Change, Writing Inclusion is Centre for Stories’ signature writing program for 2021 to 2024. Generously funded by The Ian Potter Foundation, Australia Council for the Arts, My Place, and Centre for Stories Founders Circle, this writing program features mentoring, hot desk, and publication opportunities for emerging writers from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and/or Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander backgrounds.

These stories have been licensed to the Centre for Stories by the Storyteller. For reproduction and distribution of these stories, please contact the Centre for Stories.

This interview was published in 2024.