2024-03-06
30 分钟Before Celeste Ng became a best-selling author, she had a side hustle selling miniatures on eBay — dollhouse-size recreations of food were her specialty. Even after the publication of “Little Fires Everywhere,” “Everything I Never Told You,” and, most recently, “Our Missing Hearts,” Celeste still makes tiny things — now, as a hobby. She’s come to realize the parallels between making small things and writing: Both give her a chance to look closely at the world. Today, Celeste kicks off our special podcast series, which celebrates 20 years of the Modern Love column, by reading Betsy MacWhinney’s essay “Bringing a Daughter Back From the Brink With Poems.” She discusses her own deep-rooted relationship to poetry — and the lessons, large and small, that poems can offer parents and children in uncertain times.
[Music]
From the New York Times, I'm Anna Martin.
This is Modern Love.
And today,
we're starting a special series in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Modern Love Column.
Longtime listeners will remember the early days of this podcast when we had actors read Modern Love essays.
And I want to be really clear, when I say actors, I mean like,
household name, red carpet walk-in actors.
So we're bringing that concept back with a bit of a twist.
For the rest of the season, you're going to hear actors read essays,
but you're also going to hear from musicians, writers, filmmakers,
relationship experts,
all kinds of creative and brilliant people who are thinking about love and making art about it.
Bringing us off today is writer Celeste Ing.
She's the author of three best-selling books you may have heard of them.
Everything I never told you, little fires everywhere, and most recently,
our missing hearts.
Now, I know that Celeste is acclaimed in the literary fiction world,
but the thing about her books is they're also absolutely engrossing.
I actually, this kind of embarrassing,