Editing Amy Tan (section)

== Career ==
While in school, Tan worked several odd jobs—serving as a [[switchboard operator]], [[carhop]], bartender, and pizza maker—before starting a writing career. As a freelance business writer, she worked on projects for [[AT&T]], [[IBM]], [[Bank of America]], and [[Pacific Bell]], writing under non-Chinese-sounding pseudonyms.<ref name=Huntley1998 /> These projects had turned into a 90-hours-a-week workaholism.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Feldman |first=Gayle |date=7 July 1989 |title=The Making of Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club: Chinese magic, American blessings and a publishing fairy tale |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/profiles/article/58657-the-making-of-the-joy-luck-club.html |access-date=2020-11-06 |website=Publishers Weekly}}</ref>
=== The Joy Luck Club ===
Early in 1985, Tan began writing her first novel, ''[[The Joy Luck Club (novel)|The Joy Luck Club]]'', while working as a business writer. She joined a writers' workshop, the [[Community of Writers]]<ref>https://amytan.net/bio-1</ref> in Olympic Valley, CA, to refine her draft. She submitted a part of the draft novel as a story titled 'Endgame' to the workshop''.'' Before attending the program, Tan read [[Louise Erdrich]]'s [[Love Medicine]] and was "amazed by her voice... [she] could identify with the powerful images, the beautiful language, and such moving stories." Later, many critics compared Tan to Erdrich. Author [[Molly Giles]], who was teaching at the workshop, encouraged Tan to send some of her writing to magazines. Tan credits Giles with guiding her to the end of writing the book. It began with Giles' seeing a dozen stories in the 13 page draft submitted to the program. Stories by Tan, drawn from the manuscript of ''The'' ''Joy Luck Club'', were published by both FM Magazine and ''[[Seventeen (American magazine)|Seventeen]],'' although a story was rejected by [[The New Yorker|the ''New Yorker'']]''.<ref name=":1" />''

After the acceptances and a rejection, Tan joined a new San Francisco writers' group led by Giles.''<ref name=":1" />'' Giles recommended Tan to academic-turned agent Sandra Dijkstra, in 1987. In May of that year, an Italian magazine translated and published 'Endgame,' without permission. Dijkstra advised Tan to send her another story; "Waiting Between the Trees" arrived, written as an experiment to decide whether the stories collectively become a novel or a book of short stories. Dijkstra signed up Tan and asked Tan to write a synopsis for the book, along with an outline for other stories.''<ref name=":1" />'' 

Working with Dijkstra, Tan published several other parts of the novel as short stories, before it was sent as a draft novel manuscript. She received offers from several major publishing houses, including A.A. Knopf, Vintage, Harper & Row, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Simon and Schuster, and Putnam Books, but she declined them all, as they offered compensation that she and the agent considered to be insufficient.<ref name=":1" /> Tan eventually accepted a second offer from [[G. P. Putnam's Sons]] for $50,000 in December 1987.<ref>{{Cite news|last=McDowell|first=Edwin|date=1989-04-10|title=THE MEDIA BUSINESS; First Novelists With Six-Figure Contracts (Published 1989)|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/10/business/the-media-business-first-novelists-with-six-figure-contracts.html|access-date=2020-11-06|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> ''The Joy Luck Club'' consists of eight related stories about the experiences of four [[Chinese American|Chinese–American]] mother–daughter pairs.<ref>{{cite book |title=Contemporary Literary Criticism |date=August 2008 |publisher=Cengage Gale |isbn=978-1-4144-1893-3 |editor1-last=Hunter |editor1-first=Jeffrey W. |volume=257 |chapter=Amy Tan}}{{page needed|date=June 2021}}</ref> Tan dedicated the book to her mother, with the following words: "You asked me, once, what I would remember. This, and much more."<ref name=":4" />

Being a realist, Tan had predicted to her husband that the novel would disappear from the bookstore shelves, after six weeks. She thought that most first novels meet that fate, within that time.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Tan |first=Amy |date=2019-04-23 |title=Amy Tan Reflects on 30 Years Since The Joy Luck Club |url=https://lithub.com/amy-tan-reflects-on-30-years-since-the-joy-luck-club/ |access-date=2024-02-16 |website=Literary Hub |language=en-US}}</ref> Putnam Books auctioned the reprint rights in April 1989,<ref>{{Cite news |last=McDowell |first=Edwin |date=1989-04-10 |title=The Media Business: First Novelists With Six-Figure Contracts |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/10/business/the-media-business-first-novelists-with-six-figure-contracts.html |access-date=2024-02-16 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> which were bought by [[Vintage Books]], the trade paperback division of [[Random House]]. Vintage's successful bid was at US$ 1.2 million. However, Random House decided to alter plans, and [[Ivy Books]] was assigned to print the paperback version, first, in the mass-market version, followed by Vintage, for a smaller audience, as a more expensively produced version.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1989-07-13 |title=Paperback-publishing switch surprises industry |work=[[Chicago Tribune]] |pages=12}}</ref> When the paperback version came out, its hardcover had already undergone 27 printings, with sales of over 200,000 copies.<ref name=":2">{{Cite news |last=Wilson |first=Peter |date=1990-07-14 |title=On common ground: The Joy Luck Club delves into the intensity and distance of the mother-daughter bond |work=The Vancouver Sun |pages=17}}</ref> By 1991, the book had already been translated into 17 languages.<ref name=":3">{{Cite news |last=Fong-Torres |first=Ben |date=1991-06-12 |title=Can Amy Tan Do It Again? / Publisher, public hoping for a second blockbuster |work=San Francisco Chronicle |pages=B3}}</ref>

=== The Kitchen God's Wife ===
Tan's second novel, ''[[The Kitchen God's Wife]]'', also focuses on the relationship between an immigrant Chinese mother and her American-born daughter.<ref name="Huntley1998" /> On its writing inspiration, Tan explained, "My mother said, when I started ''The'' ''Kitchen'' ''God''<nowiki/>'s ''Wife'', that she liked ''The Joy Luck Club'' very much, it's very fictional, but next time, tell my story." Tan added that there are many fictionalized parts in the story narration, too.<ref name=":2" /> Tan, later, referred to this book as the "much more" that she remembered, as mentioned in the dedication page of her first book.<ref name=":4" /> This novel is significant, as it narrates a historical period of China between the 1930s and 1940s, including [[Nanjing Massacre]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Adams |first=Bella |date=2003 |title=Representing History in Amy Tan's "The Kitchen God's Wife" |url=https://academic.oup.com/melus/article-lookup/doi/10.2307/3595280 |journal=MELUS |volume=28 |issue=2 |pages=9–30 |doi=10.2307/3595280|jstor=3595280 }}</ref>

[[G. P. Putnam's Sons]] released the book in June 1991 and priced the hardcover at US$ 21.95.<ref name=":3" />

=== Other books ===
Tan's third novel, ''[[The Hundred Secret Senses]]'', was a departure from the first two novels, in focusing on the relationships between sisters, inspired, partly, by one of the half-siblings Tan sponsored to the United States.<ref name="rudetsky21“">"Amy Tan" (interview) ''Seth Speaks Broadway!'' SiriusXM On Broadway, 16 May 2021.</ref> 

Tan's fourth novel, ''[[The Bonesetter's Daughter]]'', returns to the theme of an immigrant Chinese woman and her American-born daughter.<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Hoyte |first1=Kirsten Dinnal |title=Contradiction and Culture: Revisiting Amy Tan's 'Two Kinds' (Again) |magazine=Minnesota Review |issue=61/62 |date=March 2004 |page=161 }}</ref>

In 2024, Tan published ''The Backyard Bird Chronicles'', her illustrated account of birding as a coping mechanism during the divisive 2016 US Presidential election.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Tan|first=Amy|date=April 23, 2024|title=''The Backyard Bird Chronicles''|url=https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/717452/the-backyard-bird-chronicles-by-amy-tan/|publisher=[[Alfred A. Knopf|Knopf]]}}</ref>

===Where the Past Begins: A Writer's Memoir===
4th Estate published Tan's memoir, in October 2017. The book cover was released earlier in April.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Biedenharn |first=Isabella |date=2017-04-25 |title=Amy Tan Pokes Fun at Her New Book Cover |url=https://ew.com/books/2017/04/25/amy-tan-where-past-begins-cover/ |access-date=2024-02-21 |website=EW.com |language=en}}</ref> In the book, using family photographs and journal entries, she writes about the relationship with her mother, the death of her father and brother, stories of her half-sisters and grandmother in China, her diagnosis of [[chronic Lyme disease]], and life as a writer.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Roy |first=Nilanjana |date=2018-01-19 |title=Where the Past Begins by Amy Tan — dark materials |url=https://www.ft.com/content/7467e8da-fad6-11e7-9b32-d7d59aace167 |access-date=2024-02-21 |website=www.ft.com}}</ref> In comparison to her fiction writing, Tan said a memoir is "unvarnished.”  While writing a memoir, her recollection and sequence of events might not be orderly for the reader. They emerge according to their importance and how they shaped her.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/22/amy-tan-writing-exhilarating-wish-hadnt-been-published-memoir-joy-luck-club|title=Where the Past Begins: A Writer's Memoir|newspaper=The Guardian |date=2017-10-17|language=en|last1=O'Kelly |first1=Lisa }}</ref><ref name="whelan">{{cite news |last1=Whelan |first1=David |title=Lyme Inc. |url=https://www.forbes.com/forbes/2007/0312/096.html |work=Forbes |date=23 Feb 2007 |language=en}}</ref>