Unlocking Resilience and Purpose: How a Veteran Journalist Found her Joy Through Writing Fiction

Alison Woo: Welcome to the Zest for More podcast.

Gwynne Oosterbaan: For we are all about finding joy in and beyond our jobs.

Alison Woo: I'm Alison Wu.

Gwynne Oosterbaan: I'm Gwen Osterbaum.

Alison Woo: We are two former communications colleagues, friends, and two Columbia University graduate school alumni who have found ourselves asking a lot of the same questions.

Gwynne Oosterbaan: Like how do you dedicate yourself to one career path and then pivot when things change unexpectedly? And then in the midst of that change, find joy. Today we're interviewing someone who has lived that life and is asking herself and others that same question.

Alison Woo: Now, many of you may know Melissa Fung as the co-author of this brand new book and New York Times bestseller, The Last Mandarin, which with renowned thriller writer Louise Penny, I know her as a very dear friend and one of the very kindest and smartest people I met at Columbia Journalism School. Melissa's a highly accomplished journalist who built a stellar career covering global news for the Canadian Broadcasting Company. She was also a war correspondent and wrote about her harrowing experiences. With Taliban in her first book, Under the Afghan Sky. She's also a huge champion for women and done documentaries on how African women have fought back against the Bokum Harim. Last but not least, she is our first dame on this podcast, as she is a dame of the Canadian order. Melissa, welcome to the show.

Mellissa Fung: Thanks, Alison and Gwyn. It's so good to be with you.

Gwynne Oosterbaan: It's so great to have a Columbia trifecta here. We're gonna dig into your J School experience, which I know will pepper throughout this conversation, but I would love to just start, Melissa, to learn a little bit more about what inspired you to become a journalist. And then if you can also talk about like how you decided to kind of hyper focus, particularly around women's issues as you went around the globe.

Mellissa Fung: I think it goes all the way back to when I was a new immigrant in Canada and didn't know the language, didn't know the history, and started watching the C B C the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the n nightly news. And that's how I learned English, learned about my new country, and thought, wow, that's not a bad that's sounds like a pretty good job, right? To go around telling stories. I've had that in my mind since I was very, very young. and so I I think it's always just been a calling in a way. And then

Gwynne Oosterbaan: When you got hired by the C B C the Canadian Broadcasting Incorporation, did was that like a dream job? And when did you get to start doing the stories that you really like loved around telling women's stories?

Mellissa Fung: Well it was I came to the women's stories I think I I always had even as a local reporter in Vancouver, you know, there was a case of all these women going missing in the downtown east side in Vancouver. It turned out there was a serial killer and a lot of these women were First Nations women, they were addicted to drugs, they were in the sex trade and and nobody took them seriously. You know, they were disappearing, but nobody really cared, including you know, the authorities. And so that was my first real experience about you know, telling stories of women who were sort of forgotten or, you know, people didn't really care about. And so that carried on and and when I became a national reporter going to Afghanistan, that was the story that I really wanted to tell.

Alison Woo: Yeah, let's talk a little bit about that. You know, not a lot of female journalists choose to become war correspondents. What inspired that choice to be on the front lines of the story?

Mellissa Fung: Partly, you know, when we were Canadian military was involved in Afghanistan, aren't all the networks would rotate reporters through because we had to have somebody on the base all the time just in case some something happened. And so I was part of that rotation. Put my hand up volunteered because you know, the part partly, you know, our soldiers were serving there, right? So we need to be there, you know, to be the witnesses. But also this whole idea that, you know, the Taliban had had so many restrictions on women when they were first in power. I just thought, you know, how are the women coming out now? How are they coming out of that repression? You know, they're becoming they're getting educated. They girls are going to school again. And so there was a time where you saw a lot of progress. And I love doing those stories because it it sort of gave us like a reason to be there, right? As NATO. Those stories were really important to me. How women were making progress in terms of their rights and their education and sort of like a touchstone on how the war is really going, right? Because the war on the battlefield it could not be going well, but if women were still doing well, then it was worth keeping the fight.

Alison Woo: Absolutely. Well, while there you found yourself becoming part of the story and you've had some very extreme and life threatening experiences. How did you find most of the resiliency to transcend those experiences and what was your path to recovery?

Mellissa Fung: Well, obviously there's post-traumatic stress involved after what happened. Just to make a long story short, I was taken hostage when I was at a refugee camp for the internally displaced in in in Kabul, outside of Kabul, and held hostage by militants for about four weeks, in a whole in another province. But long story, it wrote the book about it, so I won't get into it. But I came back and I just really wanted to get back into the field. I wanted to go back and finish the story because as a journalist, you never want to be the story. And so the story I was going to go tell was about that camp and all the kids who were not in school because of the war. They were displaced, they're living in the a camp with their parents, you know, their education has been interrupted. That was the story I'd gone to tell and instead I became the story. And so I spent many, many years trying to go back and finish telling that story. But I guess wasn't sure how to treat me. And so I was relegated to doing lots of entertainment stories. Not for a while. I was doing some investigative, longer form pieces, but they really didn't didn't know what to do with me. All I wanted to do was go back and finish the story I was telling. So I eventually had to quit that job. And it was a job I loved, right? And I went back independently to to finish telling that story. And that was I thought by doing that, I was giving closure to my whole, you know, post-traumatic stress syndrome. You know, that I would be okay somehow after I f you know, finished telling that story. But what I discovered was that was just the beginning of what I call my trauma journey. So I call it post traumatic growth and not stress because it's you've taken like this happened to me and I can't it changed the trajectory of my career. my life and I can't sit and be upset about it, right? Like I have to use it for a reason. This happened for a reason. And so the reason, as it turns out, is that I have a platform to talk about Afghanistan and to talk about women in Afghanistan. So that's why I kept going back. I think after my incident I was back there, you know, eight to ten times, until just before the Taliban took over in twenty twenty one.

Gwynne Oosterbaan: That is a long time to keep investing in one place. Is the kind of experience and now like the culture and the people of Afghanistan that you wanted to, you know, showcase and and elevate their stories, does that how does that affect the way you think about the business of journalism and your endeavor in continuing to be to tell stories?

Mellissa Fung: See, I don't think of myself as a war correspondent at all. I mean I was only, you know, embedded with the military a few times. You know, there were some harrowing situations. No, don't get me wrong, but I I call I like to call myself a post conflict journalist because I like to go in after the fact and see what has happened to Especially women and and kids, because that is your barometer for how the conflict has really affected the country, whatever country it is, right? When long after journalists have turned their attention to other conflicts, other wars, that that's when, you know, I like to go back and really be able to spend time. You know, I think there's a there's a place for that because there's so much going on in the world right now, right? That you know you've got Iran. So we've forgotten about Ukraine and like it there's just so much. And so for me it it was Afghanistan for a long time, right? I have to keep reminding us, you know, Canada lost 153 soldiers there, right? They couldn't have died for, you know, for nothing. And so it you know, I really felt like I had a responsibility to keep telling that story.

Gwynne Oosterbaan: When you're writing these stories, like is the process of writing part of what keeps you going, or is there an element of just going back to the podcast title of like, do you find joy in the act of writing and capturing these stories and showcasing what people's lives are that would otherwise be, you know, non-visible and no one would even know?

Mellissa Fung: I think this is a good segue to the last Mandarin because the last everything I write about has been very hard. And so my first book about my memoir about being a hostage was very, very hard and triggering to write. And then I spent five years going back and forth to north you know, northeastern Nigeria to tell the story of the survivors of Boko Haram. And that was very difficult to write because those girls had experienced something very similar to what I had. So that was also, you know, triggering. And I was not finding joy. I it was it was a responsibility and I always, you know, I don't shy away from that. Right? It's you know, there's a responsibility for me to highlight, put a spotlight on these stories that, you know, that the world has forgotten. And so But it wasn't easy because there's no joy in in telling stories about, you know, sexual assault and gender based violence. So my dear friend Louise Penny realized this after my last book about the Boko Haram survivors and said, Well, why don't you why don't we write a book together? It could be fiction. At first I thought, You're crazy. Like why would you want to do that? You know, but I think You know, part of it was she thought it would be fun and that I would have fun writing again. And that's exactly what happened. Like who knew it would be fun to be able to make stuff up, kill people, you know, with impunity, you know, tell lies, right? Everything that I like worked against as a journalist. I get to like, you know, go crazy on in in fiction. So I did find joy in just kind of creating this world. out with Louise. So

Alison Woo: Talk about the book. So for those who don't know, who haven't read it, could you give us l the listeners a quick synopsis of what the backdrop of the story is?

Mellissa Fung: So the story the book opens and every single alarm in the world has gone off. Like imagine, right? Your car alarm, fire alarms, smoke alarms, and the signal to do this has come from somewhere in China. And they are two characters, a mother and daughter, are in a very s special situation where they can actually help figure out what's going on. So they're called to the White House to you know, and the mother is dissident. She was a former she was in Tiananmen Square at the protests back in nineteen eighty nine, and she went to America and has become this very famous dissident who speaks for democracy in China and and all of this. And so they're in a very unique position to be able to solve what's going on and prevent the next attacks.

Alison Woo: This is your first foray into fiction. What part of you took the journalism, nonfiction reporting part and kind of used it? Because you've got a lot of great global themes here, right? The rise of China as a as a mega power, technology, and how vulnerable we really are actually in the world. May not we not may not realize that, but what was you know that like using not just left brain, right brain, but like journalism brain into fiction brain? How did that meld for you?

Mellissa Fung: Well, I wish Louise was here because she would tell you that I had a really hard time getting like making stuff up at first. Just an example, there's an you know, you've read the book that where Alice, the daughter, has to go to Akron, Ohio to, you know, do some asking, asking around. And and Louise and I would switch off. So she'd write a few chapters, pass it to me. I and that was my, you know, she'd like, okay, here. The next chapter is Alice goes to Akron. Well, you know, I've written ten pages of Alice boarding the plane, the plane flying from New York or Washington to Akron. And then I think I've mapped out the whole of Akron Airport and where the car car rental was and you know, the route to this neighborhood and and she said, my God, like just get me from the airport to the The house where she needs to be, right? So she took out all of that because I but I said if somebody's living in Akron, like they're gonna wanna know, you know, and so that so little things like that. And then later on, there's a scene at the National Palace Museum in Taipei where they Alice and Vivian have to go up the stairs. And I happen to be in Taipei and I counted the number of steps, right? So I very proudly wrote in that they flew up like 58. the 58 steps to the entrance. Well, Luisa, I don't care if it's 58 or 59, right? Like that's a detail we don't really need because who is counting when they are in that panic? And I w I thought, okay, well, yeah, you've got a point there, you know? And so it was really like the the journalist's brain like never really turned off. But in the end it was it it worked out because some things, you know, really had to be accurate, especially the historical stuff. the Tiananmin stuff. There's a scene with the terracotta warriors, right? That had to be, you know, you can't some of the stuff you can't make up. Stuff that's that everybody would know. You've you know, you haven't really done your research. And so I was really diligent about that, she would say. So was

Gwynne Oosterbaan: Is that what you brought to the table if she was your sort of anti fact person what you you're the person who said, No, I'm gonna describe the Xi'an terracotta wars accurately?

Mellissa Fung: I think that's definitely and I think she would agree, right? That, you know, I was really kinda anal about details. But that's as a journalist, you can't you have to be. And what she, you know, she brought the story, right? Otherwise we'd have like ten pages of, you know, a tour of Akron,

Gwynne Oosterbaan: Can I just go back and ask one question about how did you and Louise know each other? I I am a huge fan of her series and I notice another similarity to your your coverage of the First Peoples, native peoples in Canada who many women who had had violence committed against them and it was untold. But she also did a story about that and it was actually turned into a a series and it was a gripping storyline. And I was wondering if did you guys meet through that through your Shared interest in in that those topics or how

Mellissa Fung: No sh we met in the summer of in August 2021. I had just come back from Afghanistan and of course the Taliban took over. And now I'm, you know, in the middle of putting together my story, I'm getting panicked messages from Afghan women, like, help me, need to get out. And so I think I did not sleep for weeks. Just was up all night trying to, you know, get people to the airport, get them on planes, get them out of the country. And so Louise out of the blue called me because she a mutual friend, that was the year that her book with Hillary Clinton came out. And so she and Hillary were together at that time. And as soon as this happened, I mean, if I was being inundated with messages from Afghan women, think about Hillary Clinton, right? So I think we were like Hillary was really trying to, you know, figure this out and Louise really wasn't sure what she could do. And she wanted to help. And so a mutual friend of ours, former colleague of mine at the CBC, gave her my phone number and she just called me out of the and said, I want to help. Wow. And I said, my God, like it you're a godsend, because what she had were the resources. Frankly, I knew people, I could move people, but you know, to do that you need a lot of money. And you needed a lot of money at that time. Especially to keep people, you know, in Pakistan until they could go to a third country, right? Because you have to end up you end up supporting whole families for like a year or more before they can move. And, you know, I just couldn't like I was fundraising, but I couldn't do enough. And so she was really just, you know, she managed to do all that and it was incredible. So that's how we met.

Alison Woo: How extraordinary.

Mellissa Fung: And then we were yeah. And then she would j we were living in London then and she spends a lot of time there. So we actually finally met then and then she became a you know, a regular at our Sunday dinner table.

Alison Woo: I love that. And what was the actual process of writing? Did you guys at least have a skeleton and knew where the story was? Because you've mentioned you would each kind of turn off certain chunks of the book. But did you start with a skeleton? Did you know? Did you map out like this is the trajectory? And then each one of you filled in the details?

Mellissa Fung: We did and we didn't. I mean, I was following the leader, right? I've never written a novel before. And so I was just taking her lead. And yeah, we knew who our characters were. We knew where we wanted to go. So we knew the beginning and we knew the end, right? But like the muddle in the middle, like that, we had to kind of figure that out as we went. And I I remember having lunch in London one day and we have to talk about who really is the bad guy. Right? It could be this person or this person or this person. And like, no, it can't be that person. And it can't be that person. You know, and so 'cause we and so we really didn't know until, you know, we were quite about more than halfway through writing it, who actually was causing all this chaos.

Alison Woo: A lot of o ri you know, writers will say that the book there are moments where the book surprises them. Was that one of those moments, or were there others where you were like, I didn't know that was going to happen, or the even the relationship between the mother and daughter, which is quite emotional and searing in and of itself, set within this broader geopolitical thriller.

Mellissa Fung: I think that's what surprised us the most, how their relationship evolved. And we always knew it had to evolve because they can't stay stuck in that like very confrontational, you know, where they keep missing and misunderstanding each other. That won't you can't hold that for 80,000 words, right? And so we always knew they They had to evolve. And it was nice to see that evolution. And maybe that wasn't the exact way we had thought about in the beginning, but in the end, it was, I think it it really worked. And we wanted it to be so nuanced, right? This book. So it would have been really easy to make the Chinese the bad guys. But they are, you know, and halfway through, again, you know, we're looking at the world and saying, well, you know. Actually, I feel safer going to China than America these days, right? Like it's and so so we had to sit think and say, well, no, I mean, it's not so black and white, right? It's gotta be in the gray. And that's I think where we land in the gray, because you see the president of China and the president of the US, they have a relationship and they very much like Alice and Vivian, you know, they come at it. from like not really trusting the other, not really sure what the other's thinking, right? But then they actually have the same goal in the end. And so, you know, that it's like these two relationships like sort of evolve as as the story evolves.

Gwynne Oosterbaan: Did you find that you were using any of your other journalism skills beyond the details and the specifics being correct? Like when you think about how you interviewed I'm I'm assuming you must have interviewed hundreds of people in your career, does that help you get into the head of our American president in the novel and the Chinese head of the the party? Did that

Mellissa Fung: Yeah, I don't know. I think I think in a way it did, but I was just really it was so freeing to be able to just get inside their head, right? In a way that you wouldn't, you know. I mean and and having interviewed, you know, presidents before and like you you just can't like they give you a sound bite, right? They give you and so to really be able to like write what they're thinking. Right is a is a real gift because you get to, you know, live inside somebody else's mind for a while.

Alison Woo: What's the experience now, Melissa, that it's had tremendous success? I mean it's a New York Times bestseller, it's on a number of bestsellers lists around the globe. How do you feel now that you've done that?

Mellissa Fung: under pressure to do something else, I think. I it's been quite a wild ride, right? It's like nothing that I have ever experienced before, you know, being part of this big machine, this big publishing machine. And it's been really eye opening in a lot of ways. You know, and and part of me thinks, this is really exciting, maybe you talked about pivoting, you know. when you're in in midlife or i even later life now, I would think we're you know, we're all of a certain age, right? And so I don't know what that pivot is, but I s I feel like I can't just abandon what I was doing before, like what I what I wanted to do before. So it's a matter of trying to figure out how best to tell stories, whose stories we should be telling next. And so, yeah.

Alison Woo: You think you have more fiction in your future?

Mellissa Fung: Maybe and maybe and this is something Louise taught me too, maybe sometimes fiction is a way to get at the truth more than non fiction.

Gwynne Oosterbaan: Well, I am a huge espouser of that point of view, so I love that Louise Petty said that as well. Just going back to the experience of being on the tour, and I know you're not necessarily visiting sadly our cities in the US right now, but when you're going to other places or around Canada, can you tell us a little bit about what that process is like for this book? Like, do people share their like I thought this was gonna happen or just what is it like to have a a fan club with When your co author is Louise Penny.

Mellissa Fung: It's I just sit back and watch because, you know, people want to go people wanna ask her about Three Pines and what is happening in the village and you know, what's Gamash up to next, right? You know, a lot of it is surrounding the Gamash series and so and that's lovely to to to witness her relationship with her readers. She's always so generous with them. So yeah, it's been a real experience and and she handles it with so much grace and I you know I don't know of many other authors of her stature who are that generous with with their audiences.

Gwynne Oosterbaan: Hm. Is it changing how you think about the craft of writing for yourself? I know you're saying you're still thinking about what might be next and whether a kind of nonfiction writing is part of what you might do next, but just are you enjoying that experience of having the direct access to readership, or is it something you're like, okay, take or leave?

Mellissa Fung: No, I think I would like to I mean I think I would like to try to write more fiction. But I think I also, you know, need to find a way to like we were talking before, telling those stories that still need to be told. And maybe there's a way to do it through fiction.

Alison Woo: You're also someone who's done this kind of work in so many different mediums, right? You're a T V person, you're a documentary person, you've written, print, etcetera. I would be remiss if I didn't ask you what your thoughts are about the current state of journalism, because we're in an interesting time now, right?

Mellissa Fung: I left Daily News a long time ago just to do documentaries and that was really in a way freeing as well because you just had more time to think and give context. And I think, you know, t i today it's really it's really difficult to kind of sort through, you know, all the noise to get to what is really happening and And then of course then there's the interference, Alison. You were saying, talking about sixty minutes. That's heartbreaking. Like I don't know if you saw Scott Pelley's interview, the New York Times. Compelling. Compelling. And you know, some people maybe thought he was too emotional or he was too but I think what resonated with me was when he talked about the fact that, you know, this is a calling, what we do. And we risk our lives. And some of us have lost our lives. You know, and some of us have been really damaged doing this job, going to a war zone. And for that to not be respected by his superiors, that's really insulting. Because, you know, you do this at great personal cost, some of the stuff we do. And to not have that respected is I can't imagine. So I I f I felt his pain. I really, really did. I do

Alison Woo: Think though one of the things that is a wonderful part of the technology we have today is that people like Scott and yourself and others can continue to have a voice and find an audience in very different ways. Look what Katie Cork has done on Substack. Look at how we have new voices emerging all over, right? Whether it's on YouTube or different where areas. So I do think that the audio we're in a huge shift, obviously, of the the media structure. And I do think though. Good journalism will always find its audience and its place. It it probably won't look like it has over the last thirty years, over the in the time that we have graduated. What is on your bedside table? What are you reading currently?

Mellissa Fung: I am reading my good friend Lise Duset's nonfiction, The Finest Hotel in Kabul, which is and and Lise, if you think I spent a lot of time in Afghanistan, she's been going since, you know, like before the Taliban took over in the first place. So and and her idea was to tell the history, the recent history of Afghanistan through the eyes of the workers at Intercontinental Hotel. on the hill in Kabul and so she's it's it's a brilliantly put together, just won the women's prize in nonfiction. And so that's I'm just finished it now and it's so sad that it ended.

Alison Woo: I know that feeling. Well, this has been a great book and a great read, so thank you very much for writing it. Tell listeners where they can pick up the book or where they can catch up with you.

Mellissa Fung: I am not hard to find. I'm on so I'm on Instagram, Melissa F. And the book I think it's a book you can pick up anywhere. Barnes and Noble. I would highly recommend going to an independent bookstore because there's like we put together a special edition for the Indie bookstores with a extra chapter at the end of the book. This is the independent bookstore cover. And this is the extra content cover. You don't have that one, Alison.

Alison Woo: Yeah, that's it.

Gwynne Oosterbaan: Almost like mirror is like a mirror image is there. Yeah.

Mellissa Fung: No. Yeah. Yeah.

Gwynne Oosterbaan: Like the reverse side. Wow, that's so cool.

Mellissa Fung: So yeah. That's the there's a there's a letter in there from Louise and I to independent bookstores and their customers and then the extra check.

Alison Woo: What a good way to support another good cause. So yes, so many new models and new ways. Melissa, thank you so much for being on the podcast and being our guest today.

Mellissa Fung: Thank you so much for having me. This was joyful.

Gwynne Oosterbaan: Awesome. It was for us too and me especially. It was so lovely to meet you, Melissa.

Mellissa Fung: Two give to a quin. Okay, thank you.

Alison Woo: Okay, Milsa, thanks so much. We'll be back in touch.

Gwynne Oosterbaan: Bye.

Alison Woo: All right, Gwen. It's not every day. You get to read, you know, talk with the author who you're listening to their words and reading their words on a regular basis.

Gwynne Oosterbaan: same time for sure. I'm at the beach right now and I think this is a very good beach read.

Alison Woo: Fantastic read. Absolutely. Wherever you are. Cause it's smart and it's sexy and it's interesting and it's talkable.

Gwynne Oosterbaan: It's also a little bit quaint that the intrigue is in this kind of category where the president is someone that you thought you might have actually even thought of voting for. We I could have asked her a ton of questions about getting into that head space. But I liked what she said about having interviewed presidents and thinking about them and knowing that they are existing in sound bites and that her job as a journalist was to get beyond that and that in writing fiction she was able to get into their head and maybe even have a little Sympathy for how they saw the world, which I think she does a really good job of doing in in the in the novel, in the thriller.

Alison Woo: Yeah, I I really love the relationship of the mom and daughter because in the backdrop of, you know, superpowers and technology and now we're just connected, we were it's even on that scale, you get to really see the inside, right? Of and the mother and daughter, just because the mother's famous and the daughter isn't, there's a lot of dynamic, but they she's dealing with a lot of the same mother-daughter stuff, you know, that everybody else is dealing with. And believe it or not, even though I'm a daughter, I felt like I felt quite compassionate for the mother. Actually give this mom a break. She's giving her a hard time and maybe she should cut her some slack. So

Gwynne Oosterbaan: I definitely think that they explain the generational divide and that, you know, first immigrant kind of reality of you don't know what I live through. You don't know how precious even being alive is. I I I think that that also comes through in a way that any kid who's born in the US in a kind of comfortable setting doesn't understand. And I wonder if Melissa was also trying to get people to understand that difference of Where you were born and when you were born shapes so much of how you

Mellissa Fung: You

Gwynne Oosterbaan: experience everything that follows.

Alison Woo: It's an interesting kind of track of how it comes together. Well, a great summer read.

Gwynne Oosterbaan: Studying Mandarin. There's lots of Mandarin in there. So are you able to read the Mandarin Alice?

Alison Woo: my f family was Cantonese, so my father would have been able to since he was bi multilingual, but nonetheless. But it's nice to hear. But it does make me she's right, you know, you know about the terracotta words. It makes me want to go to Duolingo and brush up all my Chinese lessons, which is also another good summer project.

Gwynne Oosterbaan: yeah, my Duolingo. We should do a whole podcast on finding joy through Duolingo.

Alison Woo: So that wraps it up for this episode. Don't forget that you can find all of our podcast episodes on YouTube at YouTube slash Zest for More. You can also listen wherever podcasts are distributed, aka Apple, and Spotify. And you can also go to Zest for More for more. All right, everybody, have a great week. When thanks so much.

Gwynne Oosterbaan: Where'd you open?

Mellissa Fung: Bye.