Hello
By: Thanh-Lan “T-Wolf” Nguyen (he/him/his, she/her/hers)
Editorial Team Member
What do we leave behind when we die?
This isn’t the first time I’ve pondered this question. Most of such times only ever took place in my mind though, whether whilst spacing out from a class lecture or lying in bed trying to distract myself from the world. One of those times, though, took place on my keyboard, as the start of the very first blog I ever wrote for This Girls Story, titled “The Nick of Names”. It was about where “T-Wolf”, my nickname– or alias, or pen name, or whatever I feel like calling it– originates from.
It was an amusingly deep way to start a blog about a mostly unrelated topic. I’m not sure what my thought process was. But it’s proof that I’ve always liked to take people by surprise in my writing, waxing poetic about things that initially seem anything but. I’ve never quite escaped that stereotype about writers. I can’t say I mind. To be a writer means to challenge, after all– yourself, your readers, your fellow writers. More often than not, I find the Venn diagram of them to be a circle.
Why was I so fixated on my name two years ago? I suppose I still am, since I use T-Wolf only marginally less than I did when first writing that blog. Most of that can be attributed to my more lackadaisical attitude now, only offering an unhelpful shrug when asked if I’d rather be called T-Wolf or Thanh-Lan, my birth name. The preference has petered out. I may have created– really, synthesized– T-Wolf myself, but Thanh-Lan is no less important. Neither name can convey the full extent of everything I’ve done.
So, let’s see what I have done. I finished out my last two years of high school, facing the determined revelation that being a writer– whether that means publishing, editing, journalism, teaching, or a mismatch of all of the above to desperately stay employed– is indeed what I want for my future. I followed that want into university, garnering plenty of peers that love the literary arts as much as I did in my first year and a half of studies. I was also forced to reckon with the fact that despite spending my high school years in a place that venerated academic overachievement, trying to do the same in college would limit my ability to explore the more fun possibilities offered along the way– going to on-campus readings filled with authors I’d never heard of before, holding cooking adventures in my friends’ apartment, and attending student art and fashion shows, just to name a few.
Beyond school, I’ve also gotten into plenty of media. I’ve relished listening to punk and alt artists like Cage The Elephant, Glass Animals, Modest Mouse, and AJR. I’ve gotten into more stand-up comedians, such as Vir Das, Hasan Minhaj, Sammy Obeid, and Gianmarco Soresi. I’ve also taken to scouring the website poetryfoundation.org daily for new poets to discover, becoming taken with the work of Chen Chen and Li-Young Lee. Just this past summer, I let myself fall into the whimsical world of the indie game Undertale, nearly a decade after its initial release. All of these and more have become inspiration for my own writing. It’s funny how just like my own name, everything I’ve created has become more recognizable as a synthesis of all the media I consume.
Yet I wouldn’t change that for the world. Not when it’s the world that needs my creations more than ever. And though I think every writer subscribes to that healthy dose of narcissism, working at This Girls Story has made me bring that to the forefront of my reasons. Taking a role as an editor in this magazine, working alongside other creatives with their own passions and goals for the organization, made me reckon more with what I want to do with the urge to write. Write, yes, but write what? What should I try? Why should I try?
I’ve answered the last already, healthy dose of narcissism and all. But knowing the answer to a question doesn’t stop it from continuing to arise as I get older, think bolder. Every time I dive into a new project, rediscovering the reasons that my work matters is crucial– not so much in persuading me to continue, but certainly in dissuading me from discontinuing. The ability to see the world through the lens of art, through the lens of creativity, is a muscle I’ve had to spend years bolstering. When I first heard of This Girls Story, I was hellbent on the idea of being a writer. Almost three years later, I still am– but I’m also an artist, an editor, a thinker, a creator. Everyone is, and everyone has the capacity to become greater at it. There is no way to kill the creator without killing you.
Even now, as I bow out of being an editor for this organization, I refuse to label this a farewell. I’m not going anywhere, and nor is my work. Being a creator is less of taking myself and my passions somewhere else, as it is grounding myself all the more stubbornly in where and what I am right now. Expanding on the me-ness the universe can handle, right now. Because I’m going to be me. I’m going to be me for a damn long time, as should you be you. Creators only ever deal in the realm of infinity, no matter if their creations are finite on the surface. We will all find it in ourselves to keep sinking deeper.
I’m receding now from the waters of this infinity. But I certainly hope I’ll find you in another, whether of my own creation or another’s. Call me T-Wolf, call me Thanh-Lan. Greet me. Challenge me. We will never die.
