top 5 songs for writer-parents with janet cheung
1. you’re not just a poet, but a web producer. i’d love to know what got you started writing. do you ever find there’s overlap between coding and your other writing practice?
My love for writing began during my secondary school years in Hong Kong. Our girls’ school was one of the few that still preserved English Literature as a subject. I remember when studying Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, we received a special assignment: instead of a critical essay analyzing the themes, motifs, and all, we got to pick a character we liked and write, in his or her voice, a letter to another character. It was truly fun to pretend to be someone else and forge a letter, feeling deeply alive in the story, even for a little while. I also hand-wrote mine on paper with a marble-like surface, rolled it up, and tied it with string like it was an ancient parchment. My teacher loved it, and his appreciation was a nudge towards my path in art and creation.
That letter, my first love for writing, might have grown into a more lasting passion, leading me to major in English with a creative writing focus in college and continue my studies in Chicago as a graduate student.
While my current job as a web producer might not sound poetic, there’s a rather unexpected overlay: the constant consideration of the “user experience.” Questions like “how do users navigate the website?“ or “how readable are the contents?” are translated into “how will the reader experience my poem?” or “is this implication too opaque?”
2. what was your writing practice like before and after having kids? any differences? challenges? rewards?
Before, my thoughts and ideas felt much like the quick flare of matches—appearing and vanishing rapidly. I struggled to write consistently and would explore visual forms like photographs and collages instead.
There was a phase of figuring things out, being new at a job and as a mother. I only returned to writing in March 2025, venturing into poetry, and was fortunate enough that my very first poem “Moved by Time” was published by Virgo Venus Press two months later. Its four stanzas, or sections, were the matchsticks that I managed to gather, and I’m genuinely happy that Kassie, the editor, was able to recognize the beauty of that flame.
3. i think a lot about the way having kids could change how preciously i hold my writing time. is that a valid fear? how does that feel as a person on the other side of that fear? what would you tell writers who want to be parents one day but are maybe a little bit afraid?
Time is a practical concern. Taking care of a baby, one barely has time for a bathroom break, let alone forming a cohesive thought. The good news is after my son turned three and started school, his sleep and wake patterns became more fixed, and I could move my time, which has become modules or blocks, around his.
It also helps with the usage of digital note-keeping apps; my favorite is one named Tesseract.
P.S. My husband is more than willing to share chores and take care of our son. He values my work as much as I do. This is my bonus help.
4. and the reverse end of that question. what advice would you have for parents who want to start writing?
I like the reverse. As a frugal person, I’d have to reuse my matchstick metaphor. Whenever an idea ignites, record it before it burns out. Then flip through the pages—Tesseract lets you literally do that—during your quiet, alone time to see what has steeped and settled.
5. we can’t leave without talking about the chapbook you’re working on right now. what themes are you exploring there?
My chapbook is a natural growth from “Moved by Time.” It is a quiet reflection and observation on ordinary moments shared with family. Memories that trace the influence of key figures crossing contrasting worlds of old and new, fast and slow, and shaping identity along the way.
I titled it Honest Honey, for its non-fiction foundation. The sweetness is natural, not forced.
Janet Cheung, a Web Producer at the Poetry Foundation, writes more often in HyperText Markup Language (HTML) than in any human language. She saves her poetry writing for the evenings, after her son is lulled to sleep. Lately, she is focused on completing her first chapbook.