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Lisa Ko

@iamlisako.bsky.social
2.2K followers 433 following 71 posts

📚 MEMORY PIECE (2024) 📚 THE LEAVERS (2017) Nationally bestselling novelist • National Book Award finalist • New Yorker lisa-ko.com

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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 23/12/2025
Hi Deborah! $19 USD? not sure what the conversion rate is
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
To join, Venmo me $19 to cover the cost of shipping and materials by Jan 15, and include your name, email and mailing address in the note. I can ship internationally! If you don't have Venmo, message me and I can share other payment options. Forget Substack, SEE YOU IN YOUR MAILBOX 💕
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
Craving words on actual paper? Ready to hurl your phone into the sea? Sign up for my snail mailing list and I'll personally mail you one zine or letter per season in 2026! Think essays and Q&As not available online and other surprises TBD! No tracking, no fascist tech platform that owns our work.
Graphic on blue background: Mail Club, a snail mailing list from lisa ko (with black snail illustration), blue "tower" image with cloud and rain, manila envelope with the words Sign up by Jan 15! slow mail analog delights in the slop and surveillance age, I'll send you four zines/letters in 2026, one per season, one-time payment of $19 covers shipping and materials, snail mail delivery, no tracking; orange and yellow stamp image, and Venmo $19 with your name, email, and mailing address in the note to: @Lisa-Ko
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Harsha Walia @harshawalia.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
there is a lot to be terrified of with news out of Minnesota thing that sticks out to me is how the killer impersonated being a cop Canada's deadliest mass shooting also involved police impersonation pretending to be cops in order to kill speaks volumes about sanctioned police violence & impunity
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Maud Newton @maudnewton.bsky.social · 26/05/2025
I recently read @iamlisako.bsky.social's MEMORY PIECE. A good companion read to PARABLE OF THE SOWER, with Y2K era art, tech, and activism storylines that extend to the future. Recommended.
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
thanks for reading!
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
it's hideous! what is even real anymore?! just another example of how our actual work as authors gets continually devalued (imagining that i blurbed your novel as "a thrilling tale of naval heroism")
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
A few of these quotes are from old AP reviews but for some reason they've all ended up being credited to me, apparently the world's most prolific fake blurber.
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
I only became aware of this when I saw a bookstore advertising a book club for Just Kids with a blurb from me, which then noticed was also on the publisher site, and then an author emailed my agent to thank me for blurbing her book, which I hadn't? www.harpercollins.com/products/jus...
harpercollins.com
Just Kids
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD It was the summer Coltrane died, the summer of love and riots, and the summer when a chance encounter in Brooklyn led two...
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
The AI book list and general enshittification reminded me that I've been credited as blurbing hundreds of books I never have, including books by Patti Smith, Amy Tan, Sidney Sheldon, Joyce Maynard, and Elmore Leonard? And I can't get these fake blurbs taken off publisher and bookstore websites?
Blurbs attributed to "Lisa Ko, author of the leavers" for Elmore Leonard, Sidney Sheldon, Joyce maynard, Peter Maas, Amy Tan, and Patti Smith
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
Build your own time capsule with me on April 2 at Interference Archive as an analog antidote to digital authoritarianism. When histories are rewritten and collective memory is contested, personal archiving can be a mode of resistance. RSVP: www.eventbrite.com/e/build-your...
A drawing of gray time capsule with a clock buried in the dirt beneath grass and shadows of buildings. Build Your Own Time Capsule: a workshop facilitated by Lisa Ko. Weds. April 2, 2025, 6:30-8:30pm, Interference Archive, 314 7th Street, Brooklyn
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
Build your own time capsule with me on April 2 at Interference Archive as an analog antidote to digital authoritarianism. When histories are rewritten and collective memory is contested, personal archiving can be a mode of resistance. RSVP: www.eventbrite.com/e/build-your...
A drawing of gray time capsule with a clock buried in the dirt beneath grass and shadows of buildings. Build Your Own Time Capsule: a workshop facilitated by Lisa Ko. Weds. April 2, 2025, 6:30-8:30pm, Interference Archive, 314 7th Street, Brooklyn
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 13/03/2025
Moderately present
Feline Grimace Scale chart with first row "ear position" with photos of 3 cats Ears facing forward, slightly pulled apart, and rotated outwards. Second row Orbital tightening with 3 cats: Eyes opened, partially closed, squinted
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 09/03/2025
Tickets here, starting at $5: www.eventbrite.com/e/obsessions...
eventbrite.com
Obsessions! A Memory Piece Paperback Launch
"A heartbreaking elegy for a communal, almost utopian approach to urban life." — Rumaan Alam, critically acclaimed author of Entitlement
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 09/03/2025
Memory Piece is out in paperback soon and we're celebrating with obsessions! I've dreamed of organizing a reading where writers share PowerPoints on topics they're obsessed with. Join us on 3/25 at P&T Knitwear for presentations from Jennifer Baker, Temim Fruchter, Benedict Nguyễn, and Nina Sharma!
Tues, March 25th, 6:30PM General Admission: $5 Redeemable as Credit Towards Book Purchase P&T Knitwear 180 Orchard St New York NY 10002 Lisa Ko Presents Memory Piece with Presentations from Special Guests Author photos of Temim Fruchter, Jennifer Baker, Benedict Nguyễn, and Nina Sharma
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 01/03/2025
more cash, less cards in 2025. bring back subway tokens. let me pay for laundry with a giant stack of quarters
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 01/03/2025
It's paperback events season for MEMORY PIECE. @aliontas.bsky.social called the book "both warning and safe harbor," which I love! Join me on 3/25 for the paperback launch in NYC, and events in Philly, NJ, LA and more - plus a time capsule workshop and a zine workshop in April! lisa-ko.com/events
An image of a figure on a bicycle next to Join Lisa Ko on Tour For Memory Piece

3/19: Grand Forks, ND: University of North Dakota Writers Conference 
3/21: Charlottesville, VA: Virginia Festival of the Book
3/25: NY, NY: P&T Knitwear - Paperback Launch (Obsessions! with Jennifer Baker, Temim Fruchter, Benedict Nguyễn, and Nina Sharma)
3/27: Long Beach, CA: Bel Canto Books (book launch for Roohi Choudhry’s Outside Women) 
4/02: Brooklyn, NY: Interference Archive (Build Your Own Time Capsule Workshop)
4/07: Paramus, NJ: Barnes & Noble (in conversation with Nicole Haroutunian)
4/10: Philadelphia, PA: Asian Arts Initiative (in conversation with Emma Copley Eisenberg) 
4/13: Queens, NY: The World’s Borough Bookshop (Zine Workshop)
4/15: Brooklyn, NY: Liz’s Book Bar (with Clare Beams, Xochitl Gonzalez, and Crystal Hana Kim) 
4/17: Brooklyn, NY: Hive Mind Books (with Griffin Hansbury) 
4/26-27: Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

More details at lisa-ko.com

An image of the cover of the book, with the same figure on a bicycle set against a fuschia flame
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NYCosmosSC @nycosmossc.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
Every Sunday, New Yorkers from all over make their way downtown to volunteer their time & fight the good, gourmet-inspired fight with EV❤️NYC. Packing up a hot meal & sending it out to our most vulnerable neighbors is a relatively small act…which feels great Learn more⬇️ www.evloves.nyc 📸Linda Hayes
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 27/01/2025
My prompt on creating your own time capsule as an anchor in uncertain times is today's letter for @writingco-lab.bsky.social's 100 Days of Creative Resistance. Read the full post: mailchi.mp/504fc06240fa/lisa-ko-creating-time-capsule
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 22/01/2025
ty Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya for including Memory Piece! "A sprawling feminist tale about art, tech and capitalism, the queer relationships (and sex scenes!) are as detailed and developed as its storytelling about the toxic relationship between art and capitalism" www.autostraddle.com/queer-climat...
autostraddle.com
Queer Books About the Environment for When All You Can Think About Is Climate Crisis
These 30+ books are about land, ecology, natural disasters, apocalypse, the harm capitalism does to the planet, despair, hope, growth, death, and rebirth.
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 30/12/2024
This is art
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
I aim to disrupt myself by writing 8,001 books in 2025 alone!
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
Memory Piece is one of NPR's 2024 Books We Love: "A story about 3 friends growing up in and around NYC in the '90s. Their friendship evolves as they push the boundaries of art, performance and technology. I loved that the book makes art feel real and weird and kind of gross." Kind of gross: YES
Books We Love: NPR

This is a coming-of-age story about three friends growing up in and around New York City in the 1990s. Their friendship evolves over the decades as they experiment with, and push the boundaries of, art, performance and technology. I loved that the book makes art feel real and weird and kind of gross – not glamorous and sugarcoated.
— Elissa Nadworny, correspondent
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vijay iyer @vijayiyer.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
+1 to this! If you’re in NYC it’s at Film Forum through the weekend. filmforum.org/film/soundtr...
filmforum.org
Film Forum · SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D’ETAT
SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D'ETAT Opens Friday, November 1 at Film Forum
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Jerry Chen @jcsalterego.bsky.social · 14/11/2024
mental health break? you bet it did
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
Grace Lee Boggs: "You don't choose the times you live in, but you do choose who you want to be, and you do choose how you want to think."
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 10/11/2024
overdue for this, but what better time than the present to get emergency water storage (and find room to stash them in a city apartment) and I found this guide useful as someone whose approach to buying things is to simply want to be told what to get and where - theprepared.com/homestead/re...
theprepared.com
Best short term emergency water storage
Survival experts researched and tested dozens of the best short term emergency water storage containers for your home. Plus tips on storage and cleaning.
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Motzie Dapul @motzied.bsky.social · 06/11/2024
Fuck it we ball 🇵🇭
Screenshot of a tumblr post from motziedapul:

Maybe it's just me as a Filipino who has lived through a murderous dictatorship and oligarchies in a queerphobic country controlled by the rich who brutalize grassroots pro worker movements all under the military abuse of US imperialism but...

You just gotta keep showing up. Support each other. Don't just fight for yourself. The work is hard, but you just gotta keep doing it. You'll always see results, even if they're not always the ones you want, or as big as you want them to be.

All your work always matters. Even if it doesn't feel like it at first. It always matters.

12 years of murderous and plunderous dictators but fuck it we ball
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 09/11/2024
Prospect Park fire and eye-watering smoky air this morning in Brooklyn - consider masking up if you're out and about www.nbcnewyork.com/weather/weat...
nbcnewyork.com
NYC under air quality alert as smoke blankets tri-state; red flag warnings, drought conditions persist
Wildfires continue to burn around the tri-state as red flag warnings remain and drought conditions persist. The fires are leading to smoky skies and diminished air quality. Nearly a half-dozen wildfir...
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Prism @prismreports.org · 07/11/2024
Fascism cannot be overcome at the ballot box, writes @williamcson.bsky.social in his column. Confused & dizzy liberals drunk off the spectacle tumbled into historical amnesia, as if conspiring with those from the very forces that prescribed “Trumpism” was subversive. prismreports.org/2024/11/07/f...
prismreports.org
Fascism cannot be overcome at the ballot box
A mixture of fear and representation politics have helped the Republican Party amalgamate the liberal base into their policy positions
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Puff the Magic Hater @mskellymhayes.bsky.social · 06/11/2024
It's a good time to read this piece.
wagingnonviolence.org
10 ways to be prepared and grounded if Trump wins
The key to taking effective action if Trump wins is to avoid perpetuating his goals of fear, isolation, exhaustion and disorientation.
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Jack Mirkinson @jackmirkinson.bsky.social · 23/08/2024
I can't stop thinking about the woman with the Pride bracelet at the DNC, covering her ears to drown out the names of dead Palestinian children. A perfect, chilling symbol of a party desperately trying to avoid the reality of the horror it has produced. www.discourseblog.com/p/the-democr...
discourseblog.com
The Democratic Party Does Not Hear You
Scenes from a week of genocide denial.
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Saeed Jones @theferocity.bsky.social · 19/08/2024
If Chrystul Kizer had blonde hair and blue eyes, she’d probably be onstage tonight at the DNC, shaking hands with politicians who used her ordeal to help pass a federal law establishing “Stand Your Ground” policy for sex trafficking victims.
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Nicole Chung @nicolechung.bsky.social · 21/08/2024
Lisa Lucas: “It’s hard to be reminded by an entire industry that investments in your people will not be made, and that when investments are made, they’re provisional.” gift link: www.nytimes.com/2024/08/21/b...
nytimes.com
‘A Lot of Us Are Gone’: How the Push to Diversify Publishing Fell Short
Lisa Lucas was among the big hires meant to shake up the industry. Her departure, alongside other prominent Black editors and executives, has led some to question publishers’ pledge to diversify.
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 26/07/2024
done! ty for sharing!
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 24/06/2024
"To connect when so much is invested in keeping us separate is a constant practice, and when we are open to it, we can feel how close we are, the thin membrane between past and future, between all of us."
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 24/06/2024
I wrote about dream futures at @therumpus.bsky.social and the bizarre dissonance betwen what we're experiencing/witnessing and what we're told we are - and how speaking the truth of how we're really doing can be the most optimistic thing of all therumpus.net/2024/06/19/d...
therumpus.net
Dream Futures - The Rumpus
Again and again, I return to this: being in community is the antidote to feeling dread, despair, and powerlessness.
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 13/06/2024
and this NPR interview with Deepa Fernandes on Here and Now - in which I talk about destroying years and years of my journals! www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2...
wbur.org
'Memory Piece' novel follows three Asian-American friends from the 1980s into 2040
National Book Award finalist Lisa Ko's new novel explores how the character's lives intersect and change over decades.
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 13/06/2024
loved talking with Jaeyeon Yoo for Electric Literature about archives, documentation, self and state surveillance, and the ever-leaky and flawed container of Asian American identity electricliterature.com/lisa-ko-memo...
electricliterature.com
Lisa Ko on Making Memory Under Capitalism - Electric Literature
"Memory Piece" is about existing in an age of surveillance and creating art in an era where identity itself is commodified
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 13/06/2024
this interview with Jordan Lauf of WNYC, in which I talk about how speculative fiction is less about the future and more about offering possibilities for the present (thank you, Samuel Delaney) www.wnyc.org/story/author...
wnyc.org
Author Lisa Ko on 'Memory Piece' (Get Lit) | All Of It | WNYC
We air highlights from our May Get Lit with All Of It book club event with author Lisa Ko. We discussed her ...
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 13/06/2024
This interview with the Miwa Messer for the Barnes & Noble Poured Over podcast! in which we talk about the counterbalance between the novel's 3 characters and why I wanted and needed to write a very different book from THE LEAVERS www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/poured-...
barnesandnoble.com
Poured Over: Lisa Ko on Memory Piece - B&N Reads
Memory Piece by Lisa Ko is an unforgettable story of art, friendship and coming-of-age that cuts across decades from the 1980s to the 2040s. Ko joins us to talk about forming the characters of the nov...
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 13/06/2024
It was such a treat to talk to Amy Sutherland for the Boston Globe Bibliophiles column - dream book nerd Q&A where I got to discuss my compulsive reading habits and shout out recent favorites www.bostonglobe.com/2024/03/19/a...
bostonglobe.com
Lisa Ko, author of ‘Memory Piece,’ believes paperbacks ‘are made to love’ - The Boston Globe
On graphic novels, Don DeLillo, and making your books into time capsules
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 13/06/2024
speaking of music! one of the best parts of publishing a new book is getting to create a playlist for Largehearted Boy's Book Notes series, and here's mine for MEMORY PIECE (additional book-inspired throwback playlists on my spotify which is iamlisako) largeheartedboy.com/2024/03/20/l...
largeheartedboy.com
Lisa Ko’s playlist for her novel “Memory Piece” – Largehearted Boy
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 13/06/2024
this Q&A with Cat Zhang for The Cut where I talk about Chinese school, '90s web journals, secret driving playlists, and other obsolete esoterica (is this the first time that Teresa Teng and Noel have been mentioned in the same sentence in an interview??) www.thecut.com/article/lisa...
thecut.com
Memory Piece Is for the ‘Asian American Art Weirdos’
When writing her second novel, Lisa Ko took inspiration from Taiwanese performance artists, online diaries, and ’90s alternative music.
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 13/06/2024
1) This craft essay for Literary Hub about embracing my messy, circuitous, maximalism-to-minimalism method of novel writing, inspired by my family’s flea market stand when I was growing up, where we made and sold things out of found junk objects lithub.com/lisa-ko-how-...
lithub.com
Lisa Ko: How Writing a Novel is Like Wandering a Flea Market
This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here. I never start a novel knowing where I’m going. I don’t write linearly, and not in clear, numbered drafts, from a beginning…
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 13/06/2024
It's been 2.5 months since MEMORY PIECE published and I wanted to share some pieces and interviews I've enjoyed doing (book promo right now often feels like such a gross dissonance (but I guess also fitting for a novel that's essentially about art making and creative work under capitalism)) ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️
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Lisa Ko @iamlisako.bsky.social · 23/05/2024
oh no. created a playlist for a new novel. I guess it's really happening
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