About the Book:

Feeding Ghosts is the story of three generations of women in her family: her grandmother, Sun Yi; her mother, Rose; and Tessa herself. Her grandmother was a Shanghai journalist caught in the political crosshairs of the 1949 Communist victory. After eight years of government harassment, she fled to Hong Kong with Rose. In Hong Kong, she wrote a frenzied, bestselling memoir and used the proceeds of that memoir to put Rose in an elite boarding school. Shortly after, Sun Yi had a breakdown that left her committed to a mental institution. Rose eventually came to the United States on a scholarship and brought Sun Yi to live with her. As a child, Tessa watched her mother care for Sun Yi, both of them struggling under the weight of Sun Yi's unexamined trauma and mental illness. 

Feeding Ghosts is Tessa’s attempt at understanding and untangling (or feeding) the complicated ghosts of her family’s past through the lenses of a sociologist, historian, writer, artist—and, ultimately, as a Chinese daughter.

About the Author:

Tessa Hulls is an artist, a writer, and an adventurer. Her essays have appeared in The Washington Post, Atlas Obscura, and Adventure Journal, and her comics have been published in The Rumpus, City Arts, and SPARK. She has received grants from the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture and 4Culture, and she is a fellowship recipient from the Washington Artist Trust. Feeding Ghosts is her first book.