Catapult | xtinehlee

Christine H. Lee

Instructor & Writer

Crisis Unicorn. Chicken + bee keeper. Author of a stroke memoir, Tell Me Everything You Don't Remember (Ecco/Harper Collins). Her short fiction and essays have appeared in ZYZZYVA, Guernica, The Rumpus, The New York Times, and BuzzFeed, among other publications. Her novel is forthcoming from Ecco / Harper Collins.

christinehlee.com

twitter: @xtinehlee

Cover Photo: Photograph by Andreas Schantl/Unsplash

Finding a Way Forward After Failure and Heartbreak, in Life and on the Farm

I was single for the first time in eighteen years. I felt unmoored. For the first time in eighteen years, everything was new, including me.

Christine H. Lee

Jun 18, 2019

Columns | Backyard Politics

Cover Photo: Illustration by Sirin Thada for Catapult

At My Urban Farm, I’m Growing My Family and Growing Our Sanctuary

By farming, I connect back to my own culture. To, pun intended, my roots. To what it means to be a child of immigrants and help things grow.

Christine H. Lee

May 21, 2019

Columns | Backyard Politics

Cover Photo: Photograph by Massimiliano Latella/Unsplash

Learning How to Be Gentle in the Face of Trauma—Others’ and My Own

Bees do not attack—just as trauma survivors do not attack, but rather defend. She will not sting you unless she believes the colony’s life depends on her defense. Because when she stings you, she dies.

Christine H. Lee

Apr 09, 2019

Columns | Backyard Politics

Turning Our Garden’s Bounty Into Community

Nature is never obedient. It rallies forward. This is the reality on a farm: The bounty comes all at once.

Christine H. Lee

Mar 05, 2019

Columns | Backyard Politics

Cover Photo: Photograph by Gabriel Jimenez/Unsplash

Giving Myself to My Garden and Keeping Enough for Me

The thing my mom told me to do—“Save twenty percent for yourself. Never give one hundred percent to anyone.”—was not selfish after all. Not when thinking about my own survival.

Christine H. Lee

Feb 05, 2019

Columns | Backyard Politics