Season 6: Submit your Lunar New Year stories by Jan 25 2026!

Lunar New Year

Hey everyone, it’s your host LAZOU here. You may have followed this feed for our Queering Premodern Asia series, or maybe you’ve heard one of our interviews in the previous seasons. However you came to be subscribed to this feed, thank you so much for sticking around. In addition to the ongoing genocide and 2024 elections, I had a lot of personal things to deal with in 2025, which left me with very little bandwidth or energy to make new episodes. But things are finally looking up, and I think I might be in a place where I can start releasing episodes again and I want you, the listeners, to be a part of it.

I really enjoyed the mix of narrative storytelling and interview snippets in season 5 and I’d like to move the podcast into a more community-based format where each month or so, I’ll let you know the theme of the next episode, and if you have a story to share, you can submit something. You could record it as a video or voice memo on your phone, or if you’re super shy, you could even submit it as text for me to read on your behalf. I will then put them together. And we’ll start right now.

Feb 17, 2026 will be Lunar New Year based on the Chinese Lunar Calendar, which is celebrated in China, Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, Hong Kong. However, many other cultures also have a Lunar New Year that happens on a different date according to different Lunar Calendars. My goal with this episode is to get a sense of how Lunar New Year is celebrated in different cultures, so the more the merrier!

For this episode, I am looking for:

• Tell me how your family celebrates your culture’s version of Lunar New Year. This could include rituals, or specific foods or superstitions or family activities. Be sure to mention your favorite or least favorite part if you have one.
• Tell me about any myths or origin stories or historical facts you were told about Lunar New Year?
• Tell me about the most memorable Lunar New Year of your life.

You only have to submit to one of these three prompts.

Your submission should be no longer than 5 minutes.

If you’re interested in participating, send your script via email to [e-mail].

This will help ensure that your submission fits what I’m looking for. I might suggest minor edits for length and clarity before you go ahead and record it.

Deadlines:

Jan 25: Last day to send me your script/pitch by email.

Feb 01: Last day to send me your final recordings.

Feb 15: Episode goes live!

When you are ready to record, make sure you are in a quiet space where there is no background noise like TV, fan, or leaf blowers. If your audio has too much noise, I will not be able to accept your submission. In your car, in your garage is a good backup plan if your house isn’t quiet enough. Cars generally have good sound isolation when all the doors and windows are closed.