Acclaimed novelist Amy Tan dazzled the audience at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History (CMNH) last Monday, May 6, when she hit the Murch Auditorium stage to share anecdotes and insights into her newest book, "The Backyard Bird Chronicles.”

"I love natural history," Tan told the excited crowd. “I’m really happy to be here.” 

The Backyard Bird Chronicles"The Backyard Bird Chronicles,” an instant bestseller since its release in late April, marks a departure from Tan’s usual novel writing. The book is a compilation of short entries from nine of her personal diaries over five years, accompanied by more than 100 of her own illustrations.

It chronicles Tan’s ventures into backyard birding, nature journaling, and drawing— all of which she began just before her 65th birthday in 2017.

The book is so personal, in fact, that she never intended to publish it.

“My editor came to me because I hadn't turned in the novel [I had been working on],” shared Tan.

“He said, ‘Why don't we do your bird journal?’ I said, ‘No, it's not what you think. It's a big mess. It's not like those pretty birds I've sent you photos of. It's sketches, it has wine stains, coffee stains, and smudges.’”

But Tan’s editor wasn’t deterred. “He said, ‘That's authentic,’” she laughed. “And now, I like that term “authentic’—that if you do something that's really bad, if somebody comes in your house and it's a mess, you can just say it's authentic!”

The resulting "The Backyard Bird Chronicles" is undeniably authentic, though far from bad. It offers a whimsical, vulnerable, and often hilarious glimpse into Tan's brave and curious soul as she stretches her own wings.

“You'll notice going through the book that the sketches evolved over time and the amount of detail that I write about evolves,” she explained. “It's a book about my learning to be an artist of a certain kind and somebody interested in birds.”

Before her presentation at CMNH, the enchanting and witty Tan discussed the inspiration behind "The Backyard Bird Chronicles" with Freshwater Cleveland.

The following Q&A is a combination of Tan’s conversation with Freshwater writer Rebecca Cahill and the moderated discussion with Dr. Caitlin Colleary, CMNH’s associate curator of vertebrate paleontology.

Amy TanThe genesis of bird watching and drawing

A successful author of novels like “The Joy Luck Club,” “The Kitchen God's Wife,” and “The Bonesetter’s Daughter,” Tan says she promised herself that she would start drawing when she retired.

But she also knew she would never stop writing fiction. When racism—especially against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders—began to surge eight years ago, Tan turned to nature and drawing to cope with the stress.

Q: How did you first start to draw birds?

Amy Tan: I started doing this in 2016 because we went through a very divisive time. What I saw in small but significant numbers is an increase in racism. And it was very overt. And some of it was directed to me.

From the time I was a little kid, I'd hear name-calling. But this felt different, and it was so distressing to me. I just thought my whole world had changed. I needed to go into nature to find another balance, to get rid of this constant thought in my head that the world was ugly. The world is beautiful, and it's right there waiting to be discovered.

So I went into nature, and I decided to draw—which is this promise I made that when I was 65—I would retire one day, then I would start drawing. I was never going to retire from being a fiction writer, but I could still start drawing. And when I was out in nature, I always felt happy and peaceful and young again.

Although Tan says drawing did not come easily to her, it did offer some release from the tensions she sensed.

Amy Tan discusses her new book, The Backyard Bird Chronicles at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History’s Murch AuditoriumQ: How did drawing help you?

AT: The early drawings were not that great [and] I’m not exaggerating. I would post them on a nature journal page [online] because that would make me get over this feeling that I couldn't do anything less [than perfect]. I was anonymous. I had a different name. That helped me.

Over time, I would post some that were getting better, but no one would have said in the beginning, “Oh wow, that's really great. I love how you gave that Scrub J two heads and one leg.” It was a very encouraging group.

I took classes with [naturalist, artist, and educator] John Muir Laws, and it was practice, and practice, and practice. You can't do it in a week. My drawings represent practicing for literally thousands of hours. Now, I can draw freehand a bird without even looking.

Q: What do you choose to draw female birds?

AT: I decided I was going to draw female birds because they get short shrift, right? They get short shrift in the photographs and drawings, and I wanted to pay homage.

For example, the female hummingbird does all the nest building. She sits on the nest and tends to the nestlings. She helps them when they fledge.

The male, he does all this fancy dazzle that people always talk about, the courtship dance, the deep dive…. But you know what? After that, when she says, “Okay, you're my mate,” it takes him just four seconds. And he's gone. He's gone! All that razzle-dazzle, and he's gone!

So I'm going to draw the female.

Q: What advice do you have for people who may also want to start birdwatching?

 AT: Just look at the birds in your backyard or in your park. Look for one bird and see what that bird does. The bird will keep coming out over time. The other way you can look at birds… is to put down bowls of water. Birds need water every single day to both drink and bathe. They need to get the parasites off. They need to keep their feathers flight-worthy.

Make sure the water is shallow, only an inch and a half at most. Put a rock in there so they know how deep it is and slant the rock down into the water. This will enable your bees to drink from the water as well without drowning. And they will stay there—they’ll drink, or they'll bathe, sometimes up to two minutes or longer. It’s a great way to observe birds. It's cheap, anyone can do it.

Amy Tan discusses her new book, The Backyard Bird Chronicles at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History’s Murch AuditoriumQ: What do you hope your fans and readers will take aways from “Bird Chronicles?”

AT: I really, really want people to fall in love with birds and to know how accessible it is. When you love a bird, even one bird you see in your yard, you're more likely to want to protect birds.

Personally, at home, [you could] do something to prevent birds from hitting your windows, or [by advocating] for indoor cats. One [billion] to three billion birds are killed by outdoor cats [each year]. About one billion birds are killed by window collisions.

Then, of course, you have changes in habitat, the removal of fields, and changes in terrain that do affect, on a large level, whole species of birds. I don't usually have messages with my books, and you can just enjoy it, but that is my hope [with this book].

Q: How has birdwatching and spending time in nature changed you?

 AT: There’s a wonderful poem by Emily Dickinson and it starts, “Hope is the Thing with Feathers.” You know, birds don't ask anything of us. They're just there. They're beautiful and they sing.

For me, it's the notion of a constancy of nature that can anchor me and make me feel grateful.

I think that when we're especially focused on anger or fear so many things that are wonderful in life elude us. Just by going into nature, in a place that asks nothing of us, we can recover and find something that's deeper.

Now, in what I do as a writer, my goal is to go deeper and deeper into knowing myself, but also into feeling. I want to feel the depths of love. I want to feel the depths of wonder.

[Nature] is the place I think a lot of that can happen for people. It can change you and make you a fuller person in that way, in any way you want it.