Taffeta Chime, called Taffy by most, is a writer and language teacher from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where she and her husband Shane Xu serve with the Chinese congregation at the North Boulevard church of Christ. Taffy has a BA in English and Creative Writing (2011) and an MA in English and Foreign Languages/Linguistics (2015), both from Middle Tennessee State University. She has won multiple awards for her short stories, poems, and essays and has been published in several literary journals. She also has two published young adult novels, Stoodie (2007) and The Last (2011). Through her twelve years of teaching English as a foreign language, Taffy has built intentional relationships with people from all around the world and continues evangelistic efforts through online Bible/language lessons, homestay for international students and visitors, and volunteer work in the local international community. Most recently, she is learning her new role as a mother to her daughter, Beili. Taffy enjoys watching YouTube, exercising, playing with her two cats, and streaming language games on Twitch.
Before the pandemic, I think it’s safe to assume many people would not have thought of loneliness as a big issue. Maybe it was an unfortunate inconvenience, but one that was fairly easy to overcome. But once isolation, quarantine, and distance became a reality, more and more people began to understand the impacts of loneliness […]
