An Interview with River 瑩瑩 Dandelion

River 瑩瑩 Dandelion walks with his ancestors. He is a practitioner of ancestral medicine through writing, teaching, energy healing, and creating ceremony. He is the author of remembering (y)our light, (Dandelion Books, 2023), a debut chapbook on honoring matriarchs and ancestors across generations, which was a finalist for the 2025 North Street Book Prize. He is the winner of the 2024 Lambda Literary Award for Exceptional New LGBTQ Writers.

A Lambda Literary fellow and Kundiman fellow, River facilitates creative writing workshops, where participants connect with their own inner and collective power. He has spoken, performed, and taught at the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at New York University, Dodge Poetry Festival, Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, the Museum of the City of New York, Restorative Justice Initiative, the University of Havana, and other venues. He was a contributing editor for the History Channel and a lecturer at Rutgers University-Newark. He loves to swim and does this work for queer and trans ancestors and descendants to come. To learn more, visit riverdandelion.com.

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Who/what made you want to write? Was there a particular person, or particular writers/works/art forms that influenced you?

My mother was the first person who handed me a notebook in elementary school and encouraged me to write. She told me I could write about anything. I have been writing ever since. I have been deeply influenced by feminist women of color who wrote across genres and theorized from their own lives, including Gloria Anzaldúa, Grace Lee Boggs, and Audre Lorde. Poets who bridge their work on the page with their values, who they are, and their work in the world are some of my favorites. This includes the visionary writing of Kay Ulanday Barrett, Ching-In Chen, Eve L. Ewing Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Solmaz Sharif, Layli Long Soldier, and Danez Smith. I am inspired by multilingual writers, especially second-generation writers who reclaim mother tongues in their work, including Nina Mingya Powles and Farnaz Fatemi.

What other professions have you worked in? What’s something about you that your readers wouldn’t know?

I have worked in cultural organizing, shaping the ways art can be used as a tool for social change and transformation in the world. In 2019, I was part of the Poetry Incubator Fellowship, led by Eve L. Ewing, Nate Marshall, and Amanda Torres. They brought together poets and organizers from across the country and together we created community. Our time culminated in hosting a block party in Chicago. I have also worked in digital organizing on racial justice, immigration justice, and trans justice with the Kairos Fellowship. I most recently was an education justice organizer working to bring greater culturally responsive education to New York City public schools. My organizing work has deeply inspired my approach to writing and sharing poetry in the world.

Tell us the story of your book’s title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?

“remembering (y)our light” comes from a poem in the collection dedicated to my maternal grandmother. Her passing propelled me into writing to make sense of the grief and loss of our family matriarch, a woman who raised five children and eleven grandchildren. It is the love that my grandmother raised us with that taught me to remember my own light no matter what is going on externally.

“remembering (y)our light” also speaks to collective remembrance to shape resistance and freer futures. We live in a country that pushes assimilation and forced forgetting. This lives inside Eurocentric textbooks and curriculum, and legislation that targets marginalized communities especially trans people, disabled people, people of color. It is imperative, then, as marginalized people, we work to know who we are, to remember ourselves in the face of these public attacks on our right to exist.

My book’s title speaks to our own self-determination. Our remembrance of our own light enhances our capacity to take charge of our power and thrive. There is a parentheses around the (y) because the self and the collective are intertwined. What we do for ourselves radiates out to the collective and vice versa.

What’s one thing you hope sticks with readers after they finish your book?

I hope readers are inspired to reflect on their roots and where they come from, whether that is in connection to biological or chosen family, the people who have shaped them. I want people to dive even deeper to learn, investigate, and know the stories that have molded who they are. I would like them to know they are not alone in their feelings, their grief, and their sadness. When we know who we are and where we come from, we are unshakeable. And it is from there we can chart illuminated pathways forward.

What was the most rewarding/meaningful part of publishing your book?

The most rewarding and meaningful part of publishing my book was the collaboration process. I got to work with Asian American visual artist and illustrator Singha Hon, who designed the book from the cover to the illustrations. Working with Singha was a dream because she saw the heart of my work and brought it to life through her mythic and imaginative art. Collaborating with her allowed me to bring this book fully into fruition.

Another incredibly meaningful part of publishing this book has been the communities I have gotten to meet and share my work with. I have performed and shared my work with organizers, artists, and community members in rooms with the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Seeding Change, The W.O.W. Project, Tin House, Baltimore City Lit Festival, and more. I remember the audience members and readers who have shared stages with me, exchanging stories from their own lives afterward. Their words and resonances have inspired me and made the publishing process so worthwhile.

What creative projects are you currently working on?

I am currently working on my debut full-length poetry collection, which holds autobiographical poems of queer, trans, diasporic Asian American life and bears witness to history across generations. Through the poems, I ask how we remember our roots and lineages in the midst of societal turmoil. This collection is informed by intergenerational storytelling with my grandparents, and weaves in histories of the Cultural Revolution, Sino-Japanese Wars, and COVID-19 pandemic. I’m living inside the poems I’m writing now.

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