ABOUT HEART RADICAL
I wanted to understand how my path was tied to my mother tongue. As a young, multiracial, bilingual American woman, I traveled through China, the country of my mother’s birth. Along the way, I tried on different roles—spiritual seeker, English teacher, student of Chinese, girlfriend, artist, and daughter—and continually asked myself: Why am I called to make this journey?
“Traversing two countries across two decades, Heart Radical gets at the multiple meanings of the heart in word, in practice, in physical and emotional use and evolution. Vivid with sensory experiences, this book offers us the chance to travel not just with Kellor but also within our own interior landscapes to arrive at new and deeper ways of connecting to our hearts' most fervent and secret wishes.”
“In Heart Radical, language becomes a rich metaphor for our own complicated and changing identities. “To be radical,” Anne Liu Kellor tells us, “is to be rooted in your essential nature.” In this soulful memoir, Kellor looks to the many ways language is a means of communication, yes, but can also be a barrier to a full understanding of ourselves and of each other. In following Kellor’s journey to China and back again, we find ourselves searching for what is most radical—most essential—in our own hearts.”
about anne
Anne Liu Kellor is a mixed-race Chinese American writer, editor, and teacher based in Seattle. She is the author of Heart Radical: A Search for Language, Love, and Belonging, and the editor of Both/And: 30 Writers on Mixed Roots and Multiracial Belonging (forthcoming from Beacon Press in fall of 2026). Her essays have appeared in YES! Magazine, Memoir Land, Longreads, Fourth Genre, Witness, New England Review, and many more. She earned her MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles, and is the recipient of fellowships from Hedgebrook, The Whiteley Center, The Seventh Wave, Jack Straw Writers Program, 4Culture, and Hypatia-in-the-Woods. Anne teaches writing workshops and leads writing retreats across the Pacific Northwest, including her annual/biennial workshop, Both/And: Reading and Writing the Mixed-Race Experience. She also facilitates a Yearlong Creative Nonfiction Manuscript Program for 8 women and nonbinary writers seeking mentorship, accountability, developmental editing and community.
“Heart Radical is a richly absorbing, deeply moving book about one woman’s search for identity, enlightenment, and connection. It’s also a tender travel memoir that takes the reader on an unforgettable and intimate journey with the author as she grapples with being a twentysomething American in China—the country from which her mother immigrated. I loved this book. It’s vulnerable, searching, insightful, riveting and beautifully written.”
Read my essays: “How to Make Friends During the Apocalypse” in Memoir Land, “Shapeshifting: Discovering the ‘We’ in Mixed-Race Experiences” in YES! Magazine, and “Miseducated: Encounters with Blackness and Whiteness,” in Seventh Wave Magazine.
Anne is the kind of person whose presence inspires a feeling of belonging and safety. I did some of my best writing while participating in her classes. She somehow managed to pull the important stories out of me, and then inspired me to do the work of turning them into pieces of writing I was proud of.
Anne reconnected me to my relationship with writing and ensured that we would try not to lose sight of each other again. She shows up as a mentor with plenty of wisdom and words to share but also as a fellow writer, learning and stumbling alongside everyone she teaches. It is both humbling and inspiring to watch her and engage with her as a teacher and as a comrade. She tirelessly tweaks her approaches and material, never settling or getting comfortable. Her intentional practices are invigorating to be a part of.
I love to teach and work with other writers. For nearly twenty years, I’ve facilitated workshops for people of all ages and experience levels, centering the voices of women, BIPOC, and other marginalized people. My offerings focus on creative nonfiction, memoir, and generative community-oriented workshops to help folks build and sustain a writing practice (formerly through the Hugo House in Seattle, and now mostly online through independent workshops). I offer uniquely tailored courses for mixed-race people, women of color, and women and non-binary writers, as well as seasonal drop-in writing and mindfulness circles or occasional collaborative workshop/fundraisers to foster courage, activism, and connection in these times.
Since 2020, I have offered an annual, online yearlong creative nonfiction manuscript program for a small cohort of women and nonbinary writers (sorry, no cisgender males). The focus is on creating a strong community to support each other through the long, transformative process of committing to writing a book. Participants set and share goals; explore individual strengths and challenges; discuss the writing process and craft; learn about book structures and publication; meet every two weeks or more as a group online, receive coaching calls every two months, and receive a full manuscript evaluation/developmental edit on up to 80,000 words. This takes place mostly via Slack and Zoom, with a culminating summer meet-up in Seattle for those who can make it. Students come from all ages and places, with one half of the spots reserved for women of color. Together, we form an intimate community of mutual support that continues long after the year is over. Applications for the 2025-2026 cohort will be available in June of 2025.
As a facilitator, creativity coach, and developmental editor, I love working with writers from diverse backgrounds and experience levels, whether in group settings or one-on-one. I offer scholarships or sliding scales when possible.
Read on to find out the different ways we can work together!
