Dear Librarian,
When I was young, my mother brought me to the library at least once a week, our visits as routine as buying groceries or going to school. No matter what neighborhood we moved to, there was always a branch nearby, complete with a musty card catalog, squeaky revolving racks stuffed with paperbacks, and a librarian who would listen carefully to our questions and guide us to the right books.
Since then, the library has been an anchor, almost as familiar to me as home. I can access just about any book. I can flip through the newspaper, request new titles for the collection, view documents with a microfiche reader, see art exhibits, browse the seed exchange library, and learn how to mend socks. I’m thrilled when I get a notification that the book I’ve had on hold for three months is waiting for me. I don’t even mind when I recommend a book to a friend and the copy I’ve checked out is recalled because they’ve requested it. I can’t remember important phone numbers, but I know my 14-digit library card number by heart.
My debut novel, Awake in the Floating City, wouldn’t exist without the San Francisco Public Library. To bring this story to life, I read stacks of novels, poetry, and books about Chinese American history, the environment, and caregiving. For weeks, I explored digital databases of ephemera from early-1900s San Francisco. I wrote in study rooms and at shared tables. I relied on free Wi-Fi and cheap printing. So many times, when I was stuck with the writing, I simply stood up, browsed the shelves around me, and found the inspiration or answers I needed to move forward. During heat waves, when my apartment got too hot, I worked in the comfort of an air-conditioned branch.
My book is set in a future San Francisco flooded by years of rain. Bo, an artist, is one of the few residents who remain, despite increasingly precarious conditions. When she decides to create a work of art that honors both the 130-year-old woman she cares for and the place they both call home, she starts to dig into personal and collective histories of the city. Fortunately, she has the help of a devoted librarian (and civil servant generalist) who looks after what remains of the city’s archives and collections. A central question of the book is how to remember what matters as the world we know disappears, so when the librarian appeared in an early draft, I knew she would play an important role. Her preservation efforts and expertise in local history help shape the trajectory of the art project as well as the relationships between characters and place.
I’m so grateful to this fictional librarian, and to all librarians, for looking after our communities generation after generation. Thank you for maintaining spaces where everyone is welcome, encouraging curiosity, and taking care of our collective knowledge, especially in the face of growing threats of censorship and rapidly changing climate conditions. It’s a privilege to know that my book will soon be one of the many under your care on library shelves.
With gratitude,
Susanna Kwan
