Lisa See’s twelfth book, Lady Tan’s Circle of Women, follows the life of Tan Yunxian, a 15th century doctor during the Ming Dynasty in China (a relatively unheard of concept back then). It explores marriage, motherhood, and medicine through her eyes, as well as the lives of the women around her (midwives, concubines, her powerful mother-in-law, and even the Chinese empress).

Lisa joins Marrie Stone to talk about the book, and how her research and writing process changed as a result of the pandemic. She talks about how much she outlines the story before beginning to write, how she approaches the research, how she tackles “cringy” scenes, how she accesses her minor characters, how losing her own mother (the writer Carolyn See) has impacted her subsequent novels, and how she’ll approach future writing differently in light of what this book taught her.

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(Recorded on May 31, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett