I like Jimmy Chen a lot: the many minds of JC
Jimmy Chen contains Asian multitudes
I think in future litmus tests of potential significant others, one could do well by presenting to them a bibliography of Jimmy Chen, inclusive not only of his fiction, but his blogging, his persona, his internet collage. Then watch their face. If they aren’t with it, they are worthless. Send them crying to their moms.
Knowing Jimmy Chen exists in the world has on more than one occasion made me feel better about my life, and about writing. This is strange, likely, as I have never met Jimmy, never even Gmail chatted with him, or had much direct correspondence with him outside of brief emails and blog comment banter. And yet in most every instance of him I can remember, I have come to believe that if more writers were like Jimmy Chen, this whole game would be so much better off.
There are lots of ways I could define this sweeping statement, but rather than explain why he is a good person (which I believe he is), or positive for the mind, or just plain goddamn funny, I’d rather look at what he does more concretely, and in the mind of how what Jimmy does can be used as a model or a mindset worth trying to strive for.