Audiobooks by E. Lily Yu

Break, Blow, Burn, and Make: A Writer's Thoughts on Creation

When a writer and the Creator work together, the universe is set in order.   Centuries ago, sound theology and good fiction were friends and not strangers. Decades ago, authors strove not for self-expression and self-disclosure but for a mastery of craft and language and books that transformed the reader with wisdom and love. In more recent years, the old ideals have been exchanged for lesser ones.   Few guides to writing, which tend to focus on mechanics, point of view, and plot, address the more important matters of meaning, depth, and heart. But it is the latter qualities that make a book a blessing and gift to both writer and reader. Like Christ's invitation to follow, they demand a risk and sacrifice of the self and all it holds dear. Writers from George MacDonald to James Baldwin understood this, but in recent years this understanding has been lost. Making old things new, this book proposes an ethics of reading, writing, and living based on truth and love.   Break, Blow, Burn, & Make returns the literary conversation to the practices of co-creation with God. Part bugle call, part compass for writing and for life, and part love song to the books that set us on fire, it offers those who are willing to receive it the courage to live, read, and write more deeply and honestly.  

E. Lily Yu (Author), Nancy Peterson, TBD (Narrator)

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Jewel Box: Stories

The strange, the sublime, and the monstrous confront one another with astonishing consequences in this collection of twenty-two stories from awardwinning writer E. Lily Yu. In the village of Yiwei, a fallen wasp nest unfurls into a beautifully accurate map. In a field in Louisiana, birdwatchers forge an indelible connection over a shared glimpse of a Vermilion Flycatcher. In Nineveh, a judge who prides himself on impartiality finds himself questioned by a mysterious god. On a nameless shore, a small monster searches for refuge and finds unexpected courage. At turns bittersweet and boundary-breaking, poignant and profound, these stories sing, as the oldest fables do, of what it means to be alive in this strange, terrible, beautiful world. For readers who loved the intelligence and compassion in Kim Fu’s Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century and the dreamlike prose of Kelly Link’s Magic for Beginners, Jewel Box: Stories collects the acclaimed short fiction of E. Lily Yu, whose work has been praised in the New York Times as “devastating and perfect.”

E. Lily Yu (Author), Cindy Kay, Ramiz Monsef, Soneela Nankani (Narrator)

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On Fragile Waves

The haunting story of a family of dreamers and tale-tellers looking for home in an unwelcoming world. Firuzeh and her brother Nour are children of fire, born in an Afghanistan fractured by war. When their parents, their Atay and Abay, decide to leave, they spin tales of their destination, the mythical land and opportunities of Australia. As the family journeys from Pakistan to Indonesia to Nauru, heading toward a hope of home, they must rely on fragile and temporary shelters, strangers both mercenary and kind, and friends who vanish as quickly as they’re found. When they arrive in Australia, a seemingly stable shore gives way to treacherous currents. Neighbors, classmates, and the government seek their own ends, indifferent to the family’s fate. For Firuzeh, her fantasy worlds provide some relief, but as her family and home splinter, she must surface from these imaginings and find a new way. This exquisite and unusual magic realist debut, told in intensely lyrical prose by an award-winning author, traces one girl’s migration from war to peace, loss to loss, hope to home.

E. Lily Yu (Author), Jeed Saddy (Narrator)

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