I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Christine since the early days of Instagram, where I was captivated by her curated collection of vintage photographs, notebooks, and her infectious love for books. Little did I know, these passions would eventually come together in the most beautiful way possible with the release of her debut novel, Landscapes. Naturally, I had to pick it up, and as I read it, I was struck by how seamlessly she wove her interests into the fabric of the story. It was clear that this book was not just a reflection of her creativity, but a testament to her ability to bring together art history, journaling, and the nature of the human condition. I’m so excited to delve deeper into Christine’s journey as an author and person behind Landscapes. - Eunice
Bk: Christine, we are so grateful to have you here with us. For those who do not know you, could you please give us a brief introduction of yourself and your life story?
Christine: Hello BK community! It is such an honor to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me to contribute to the Love for Analogue series, of which I have been a fan since you first started it. I was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and raised in Vancouver, Canada, where I currently live, and I also lived in England for about 6 years during graduate school. Since 2021, I have been working in the publishing industry as a writer, though I have a background in academic research (specializing in literature) and used to work in higher education.
I have been an avid collector of stationery my entire life. As a child, I was obsessed with Sanrio-themed items, everything from notebooks to metallic pencil cases, which I mostly kept in pristine condition and avoided using. Simply taking them out of the box and admiring them brought me tremendous joy. During my adolescence and 20s, I relied on functional and practical items from the local stationery shops. It wasn’t until I worked in Taiwan for 2 years in my early 30s that I discovered the Traveler’s Notebook (back then, I believe TN was only available in Asia). The TN changed my relationship with stationery. It is not merely an artifact, but a companion and an embodiment of a particular way of being in the world. Virginia Woolf once wrote of her diary as “something loose knit…so elastic that it will embrace anything, solemn, slight or beautiful that comes into my mind. I should like it to resemble some deep old desk, or a capacious hold-all, in which one flings a mass of odds and ends without looking them through.” The TN is such a “capacious hold-all” for me. I sometimes refer to it as my florilegium (from the Latin for “flower” and “gatherer”), as it is a repository in which I have gathered stray thoughts, quotes, ideas, images, all the bits and pieces that mark time and reflect everyday existence.
Bk: Did you always envision yourself as an author, or was there a specific moment or experience that sparked your decision to pursue writing as a career?
Christine: I definitely did not envision myself as an author when I was young, as I came to creative work relatively late in life, compared to many of my peers. I suppose my decision to write professionally was born out of the desire to be in dialogue somehow with the writers I admire, since literature has been my one great love in life. Academic work and teaching sadly did not offer me the opportunity to engage with literature in the way I wanted, and it was only by diving into the messiness and the beauty of the creative process that I was able to understand writing on a deeper level.
Bk: You're known for collecting vintage artifacts like photos and letters. What is it about these items that fascinates you? Is there a particular story or memory attached to them that draws you in?
Christine: I love the fact that these small, seemingly insignificant objects have endured years and decades, despite their fragility and ephemerality. Like the notebook, a piece of ephemera is an object that contains layers of meaning. I started collecting vintage picture postcards when I was living in London as a graduate student. The Bloomsbury Ephemera Fair took place in my neighborhood every year, and I would rummage through the cheap £1 or 50p boxes to search for images that arrested my attention. I also have fond memories of attending another ephemera fair with one of my closest friends, who is a painter, and we both decided to splurge on a single postcard – she purchased an early 20th-century view of Korea, where she is from, and I bought a special kind of postcard called a Gruss Aus card, which shows three or four views of a city (in this case, Leipzig). The card was postmarked 1890, and it remains the oldest card in my collection. Since then, I have studied the history of postcards and the culture of collecting, and these pieces of ephemera continue to play a role in my writing projects: sometimes, an essay or short story might begin with a postcard message or image; other times, as in Landscapes, the postcard might function as a symbol.
Bk: We love that Landscapes is written in a diary-style epistolary format, where the protagonist reflects on the day’s events. How did your personal passion for documenting experiences influence this choice of composition for the book?
Christine: My own use of notebooks certainly taught me a lot about the compulsion to scribble, to capture the rhythm and texture of the everyday. Unlike a traditional work of fiction, which might be more polished, the diary novel is deliberately imperfect, irregular, and fragmentary. I am drawn to novels that take the form of diaries or notebooks, such as Kate Zambreno’s Drifts, since they have this disjointed quality that I think perfectly captures the way the mind moves. Additionally, many of my “literary heroes” were avid note-takers. Roland Barthes had a large collection of notebooks and note cards, and an elaborate system for note-taking. The philosopher Walter Benjamin had numerous booklets, for his diary, travels, writing-related ideas, letters, and lists. He once described his notebooks as “the daintiest and cleanest quarters,” like little rooms wherein he could house his “changing and disparate thoughts.” I love that phrase, “the daintiest and cleanest quarters,” and this was a phrase that I kept in my mind as I wrote the protagonist’s fictional diary entries. I’m equally drawn to the diaries of writers such as Virginia Woolf and Franz Kafka. In particular, I’m captivated by the image of Kafka sitting with his notebook, late into the night. He considered his journal the only place where he could “hold on,” and many images or ideas that later appeared in his fiction were first formed in the space of the journal. In this sense, the notebook contains the seeds of literature.
Bk: Your book is filled with so many rich art history references - it must have required extensive research! Did you have an analog or hands-on method for organizing all the information during your writing process?
Christine: The analog tools are indispensable. I keep most of my research notes on the computer, but I do my brainstorming in a notebook, with stray ideas and references often scribbled on note cards or Post-it notes. These fragments are then moved into the draft, which I always write by hand in an A5 notebook. In order to organize all the different sections of Landscapes and the divergent threads, I used a poster-sized piece of paper, which I folded into the notebook, and I pasted Post-its onto this paper, and arranged and rearranged the notes every day until I could see the right pattern that worked for the book.
Bk: Can you walk us through a typical day using your analog systems and what they are?
Christine: I am very particular about the analog tools that I use, simply because I’ve found that having the right pen or the right notebook means I can dive into my writing without having to worry about anything. Each morning, I start the day with planning, using my olive-colored TN and the weekly agenda insert. On busier days, I also write down a more detailed hour-by-hour plan in the stenographers’ notebook from Life stationery. After the planning, I spend a few hours reading, and I jot down quotes and ideas in my commonplace book, which is always an A5 notebook (from either Midori or Life), held inside a Superior Labor cover (I have also used the Roterfaden cover). After the reading, I start the writing phrase. All my writing is done inside an A5 Life Noble Note notebook, currently held in the Hobonichi botanical cover, and I always use the black Platinum 3776 Century fountain pen, in a broad nib, filled with the Faber Castell hazelnut brown ink. This combination – the A5 notebook, the Platinum, the brown ink – has not changed for years, and I continue to write everything using these tools. Writing-related ideas and planning go inside a small A6 booklet and a B6 notebook held inside a pleather Life Noble Note cover. At the end of the work day, I use my camel-colored TN to record the readings and work I have completed for the day, on top of any other activities that might have occurred. Occasionally, I record my current thoughts or feelings, though I do not keep a private diary in the traditional sense. I also have a three-years diary from Japan (it doesn’t have a specific brand). Once a week, I do a journaling session where I decorate the pages of my two TNs, usually by using stickers or postage stamps. I also add leaves, tickets, and other ephemera to my commonplace book and writing notebooks, and I regularly change the picture or card that I attach to the front of my TNs. Aside from these artifacts, I also have my beloved BK-Superior Labor pouch, that I use to hold my current reads; three Classiky boxes for various stationery items; and a Superior Labor pen pouch for my fountain pens.
Bk: What has been your greatest challenge, either in life or as an author, and how did you overcome it?
Christine: This is such an interesting, yet difficult, question. I suppose the greatest challenge has been establishing an internal system of evaluation that is completely independent of the outside world, that does not require external validation (whether in the form of praise, prizes, or other signs of worldly success). What is most important to me is the meaning I find in what I do, regardless of what others might think or how they might react to that work. I cannot say I have fully overcome this challenge, as it is an ongoing project, but it is one that I have managed to address, bit by bit, by focusing on the details in the present that matter to me. There is a quote I always return to, from one of my favorite books, Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino, a copy of which I always keep on my desk: “…learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space.”
Bk: Shifting gears a bit, what activities or practices help you recharge and gain fresh inspiration in life?
Christine: Perhaps predictably, reading is my main source of inspiration. I love browsing in bookshops and adding volumes to my library. Journaling is, of course, a rejuvenating activity, and I love spending time with my notebooks, alongside a cup of tea, a candle or incense, and other keepsakes on my desk. I’m also inspired by cinema, and I try to watch at least one art house film per week. Aside from these activities, I enjoy going on long walks in the city. Also, I have a bunny, and it’s always so relaxing to spend time with her.
Bk: As an avid reader and author, if you could gift just one book to someone, which one would it be and why?
Christine: This is challenging as there are simply too many excellent books! But if I had to choose, it would probably be The Wall, by Marlen Haushofer (translated from the German by Shaun Whiteside). It is a book of great importance to me, and one that I return to repeatedly. The narrative takes the form of a journal, and on the surface it seems to be about disaster, but on a deeper level, it’s about community and the kinship with animals, about the need to mend our relationship with the natural world. This is one of my favorite quotes from the novel: “There is no impulse more rational than love".
Where to find Christine:
IG: @chryseis44 @daintiest_quarters
Website: Christine Lai
BK Artifacts Featured:
0 comments