Every once in a while, you just need a tea that will help relax you. The Earl who Isn’t, the final book in the Wedgeford series, just released, and I’ve been spending most of my time writing release letters and doing promo and getting things ready. 

 

This usually means that by the time 3 PM rolls around, I’m deeply frazzled and ready to take a break, and what better break is there than tea?

 

Gina is a ripe pu-erh which is not at all fussy. I was so distracted that my first steep ended up being a minute long rather than 10 seconds, but that was fine with Gina. The tea ended up being dark and tasty without too much extra astringency. I poured out the second steep and then went to clear some things up in email, and remembered it existed thirty minutes later. The water was a little tepid, but the tea was still good.

 

This ended up being a delightfully forgiving tea, and I’m extremely happy to have had a few moments, however interrupted, to relax for a little bit, even if it wasn’t for very long.

Gina is a shou pu-erh from white2tea, and can be purchased either as a 25 g sample or as a cake.

We interrupt this newsletter just to remind you that The Earl who Isn't is finally out. I really love this book. Lily, a suffragist, believes that women should have the right to vote. She's had to grapple with the meaning of “universal suffrage” in a world where her male cousins, living in Hong Kong, aren't allowed to vote either.

 

Lily has also come across proof that Andrew is actually an earl. Does Andrew want to be an earl? No. Andrew wants to grow long beans. Unfortunately, Andrew's childhood sweetheart is about to come home…with a vengeance.

Get The Earl who Isn't on:

Note: there should be print versions on Amazon & B&N, and hopefully in a few days, those will be available from everywhere else, too!

There’s a subplot in The Earl who Isn’t in which Lily, our intrepid heroine, wants to publish a volume of translated poetry written by Chinese feminists. There are a lot of people who (mistakenly) believe that the concept of historical Chinese feminists is an impossibility. Those of you who have been part of Wedgeford since the beginning know this is not true: that China, just like every other country, has seen women who believe they are the equal of men, and even men who agree.

 

One of the reasons I decided to have Lily publish poetry was because I started following the story of Yilin Wang, a translator working today, who has translated poetry by Qiu Jin, a revolutionary feminist who would have been a contemporary of Lily’s. 

 

Yilin’s extraordinary translations were used (without credit, compensation, or consent) by the British Museum; Yilin was able to fight back and get them to acknowledge their error and to fund a scholarship for emerging translators. You can read more about that here.

 

Reading Yilin's translation of Qiu Jin was a revelation for me. Her poetry would not have been available for Lily to translate (or read) in 1892, but her poetry was deeply inspiring to me, and a reminder that we are more free when all of us are free.

 

So if you would like to read some of the Chinese feminist poetry that inspired me while writing this book, I suggest this lovely volume.

If you’d like to read Qiu Jin’s poetry in translation, 

you can find it in The Lantern and the Night Moths:

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