2010 Asian/Pacific American Award For Literature

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I’m not sure if there’s a better gift than winning something you had no idea about.  There’s no expectation, no pressure, nothing of the sort that’s going on with the athletes of the Olympics right now.  Yesterday, I found out that Everything Asian won the 2010 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature in the Youth category.  Apparently the press release came out more than three weeks ago!  This is an award given by the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA), which is an affiliate of the American Library Association (ALA).  The winners are as follows:

Picture Book Winner
Cora Cooks Pancit
Dorina K. Lazo Gilmore (illustrated by Kristi Valiant)

Picture Book Honor
Tan to Tamarind
Malathi Michelle Iyengar (illustrated by Jamel Akib)

Youth Literature Winner
Everything Asian
Sung Woo (that’s me!)

Youth Literature Honor
Tofu Quilt
Ching Yeung Russell

Adult Fiction Winner
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
Jamie Ford

Adult Fiction Honor
Shanghai Girls
Lisa See

Adult Non-Fiction Winner
American Chinatown: A People’s History of Five Neighborhoods
Bonnie Tsui

Adult Non-Fiction Honor
Japanese American Resettlement Through the Lens
Lane Ryo Hirabayashi

Previous authors who have received awards from the APALA include Jhumpa Lahiri and Chang-rae Lee, so to say that I’m honored is an understatement.

[read more]

The R Word

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We’re sorry to inform you…there were many strong entries…we wish you the best of luck placing it elsewhere.

You’d think that after twenty years of writing, revising, and submitting, these responses of thankful apology, these kind-hearted notes of rejection, would be easier to take. But they hurt, every time.

An essay I wrote on rejection, at The Nervous Breakdown.

It’s Not an Error — It’s Just Business.

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If you go to Amazon today to buy a Kindle edition of my book, you won’t be able to.  Initially I thought it was an error, but actually, it’s just business.  From The New York Times:

Amazon.com has pulled books from Macmillan, one of the largest publishers in the United States, in a dispute over the pricing on e-books on the site.

The publisher’s books can be purchased only from third parties on Amazon.com.

A person in the industry with knowledge of the dispute, which has been brewing for a year, said Amazon was expressing its strong disagreement by temporarily removing Macmillan books. The person did not want to be quoted by name because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Macmillan wants Amazon to sell popular Kindle books for $15 rather than the ubiquitous $9.99.   So now they’re duking it out publically.  It’s sort of like seeing your parents fight right in front of your eyes.

Who doesn’t love cheap?  I know I do.  But there is a cost associated with plummeting prices, which you can read about in Cheap, a fantastic book written by Ellen Ruppel Shell, which you can still buy from Amazon — at least for now.

P&W via FWR

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Some great news and a great deal from Fiction Writers Review:

As you know, we’re big fans of Poets & Writers Magazine around here. So we’re excited to announce that Poets & Writers has generously agreed to offer our readers a special subscription rate of only $12. The reason for this offer is to help build support for a new series in the magazine called “Inside Indie Bookstores,” written by our Associate Editor, Jeremiah Chamberlin. Each issue will feature an important independent bookstore around the country. The first to be profiled will be Square Books, of Oxford, Mississippi.

For those unfamiliar with Poets & Writers, it’s probably the most useful magazine for writers.  It’s always chock full of real-world information and practical advice.

The Naked and the Conflicted

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There’s an essay on the flaccidity of the new crop of male fiction writers in the current issue of the Book Review.  Basically, Katie Roiphe is saying the oldies (Philip Roth, John Updike, Saul Bellow, etc.) wrote about sex and the getting of sex and the having of sex while the newies (Dave Eggers, David Foster Wallace, Michael Chabon, etc.) are neutered.  The exact quote:

The younger writers are so self-­conscious, so steeped in a certain kind of liberal education, that their characters can’t condone even their own sexual impulses; they are, in short, too cool for sex.

Is this true?  To some degree, but I’m not sure if it’s liberal education that’s at fault.  Instead, I think Roiphe forgot about four very huge letters that loomed as large as anything in the fear cache of my childhood: AIDS.  I can still remember seeing a man on TV with open sores all over his body, and the TV announcer more or less saying, “Have sex, and this will happen to you.”  That’s something you just don’t ever forget.

Secondly, I can think of two contemporary male authors off the top of my head who have no problems whatsoever writing about sex: Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho) and Chuck Palahniuk (Choke).  The sex may have become more violent, but it’s still quite prevalent.

Favorite Songs of 2009

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Here’s a list of my top twenty songs for this year, in alphabetical order by artist.  These are not necessarily from 2009; I just happened to have heard them in the last twelve months.

“Sometime After Midnight,” by The Airborne Toxic Event on The Airborne Toxic Event
“Dreams,” by Brandi Carlile on Give Up the Ghost
“My Life Would Suck Without You,” by Kelly Clarkson on All I Ever Wanted
“Blow Away,” by A Fine Frenzy on Bomb in a Birdcage
“¡Viva La Gloria!” by Green Day on 21st Century Breakdown
“Half Life,” by Imogen Heap on Ellipse
“Dangerous and Sweet,” by Lenka on Lenka
“Sick Muse,” by Metric on Fantasies
“Everybody,” by Ingrid Michaelson on Everybody
“Rain,” by Mika on The Boy Who Knew Too Much
“Lucky Boy,” by Matt Nathanson on Beneath These Fireworks
“Shattered [Turn the Car Around],” by O.A.R. on All Sides
“Have to Drive,” by Amanda Palmer on Who Killed Amanda Palmer
“Just Breathe,” by Pearl Jam on Backspacer
“Eet,” by Regina Spektor on Far
“Two Tongues,” by The Swell Season on Strict Joy
“Tokyo,” by Telekinesis on Telekinesis!
“(If You’re Wondering If I Want You to) I Want You to,” by Weezer on Raditude
“Robocop,” by Kanye West on 808s & Heartbreak
“VCR,” by XX on XX

If I had to pick one song as my favorite, it would be XX’s “VCR.”  Mysterious lyrics, an atypical duet, and clocking in at under three minutes: the perfect tune.

Our Favorite Books of 2009 – Chicago Sun-Times

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The Chicago Sun-Times has chosen my novel as one of their favorite books of 2009:

Sung J. Woo’s debut novel, Everything Asian, is a standout. Full of wit, humor and heart, the book succinctly captures the struggle of an immigrant child trying to fit into American society — and in his own dysfunctional family. —Jae-Ha Kim

Check out the rest of the list.

“sung j woo paris at night summary”

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The software I use to run this website is the very popular WordPress, which includes an excellent stats package.  Web stats reveal a number of things like total visitors, pages accessed, and incoming links, but the one I find most interesting is Search Engine Terms.  What this does is capture the search phrase used to arrive at the site, and as expected, my name is at the top of this list, but a large number of those hits aren’t just my name alone:

“sung j woo paris at night summary”

Paris, at Night is a short story that came out earlier this year, and on that site, readers can leave comments.  One of them caught my attention:

Posted 2009-06-25 09:45:23
 I used this story in a Freshman English class as part of their final exam. the kids loved the story, but were disappointed in the end. They wanted there to be more. i am so happy I chose this story. It is rare to find a story the kids actually enjoy reading and want more.

So my guess is that certain students, possibly constrained by time or initiative,  are searching the good old Internet to see if a summary of my story is available.  So kids, if you are seeking a CliffsNotes version of my story, here it is, written for you by Gary Jackson:

In World War II Casablanca, Rick Blaine, exiled American and former freedom fighter, runs the most popular nightspot in town. The cynical lone wolf Blaine comes into the possession of two valuable letters of transit. When Nazi Major Strasser arrives in Casablanca, the sycophantic police Captain Renault does what he can to please him, including detaining Czech underground leader Victor Laszlo. Much to Rick’s surprise, Lazslo arrives with Ilsa, Rick’s one time love. Rick is very bitter towards Ilsa, who ran out on him in Paris, but when he learns she had good reason to, they plan to run off together again using the letters of transit. Well, that was their original plan…

If your professor tells you this sounds a lot like a movie, stand up, declare “Au contraire, mon frère (or ma soeur)!” and leave the classroom in a huff.

Complicated Chopsticks

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The poster for the new Meryl Streep-Alec Baldwin-Steve Martin movie, It’s Complicated, looks like this:

Two years back, a guy contacted me out of the blue and wanted to make a short film out of my short story “American Sister.”  A few back-and-forths later, I was writing the screenplay for it and a little while later, the film got made.  The promo shot for “Fork in Chopsticks” looks like this:

You can watch the film on IMDB.  It’s not exactly a faithful adaptation of the short story, nor is it a faithful execution of the script itself, but hey, I’m not complaining.  The fact that it got made, and that it had a showing in NYC, was more than enough for me, an early Christmas present for sure.