The good folks at Backstory have posted my, you guessed it, back story. How did Everything Asian become a book? Like this.
Back in 1981, when I was ten years old, my life had become a foreign-language film without subtitles. Everywhere I went, people spoke English, which was a problem because all I knew was Korean. My mother, my two sisters, and I had made the trek from Seoul, South Korea to reunite with my father in New Jersey, and once we got our bearings, it was time to get to work.
In 2007, my wife and I spent our honeymoon in Paris (with a brief stint in London as well). I’m not much for traveling, but I loved just about everything about Paris: the Seine, the food, the museums, the people. I didn’t think we’d be going back for years, but as it turned out, in eight days, we’ll be back in the City of Lights, because right now, we’re in Rome (and loving it!).
In any case, ever since I left Paris two years ago, I tried to write a story that took place there. After two stalled attempts, this one just sort of happened, in almost a single sitting. Which is always a good thing, because it doesn’t happen often for me.
So far, I’ve received three reviews — Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and Booklist. And I’m happy (relieved?) to say that I’m batting a thousand — in non-baseball terms, all three of them are positive (Kirkus most of all, as it is a starred review).
Kirkus Reviews: “Cleverly concatenated stories about the experience of Korean immigrants make up Woo’s loosely structured novel…that both delights and instructs.”
Booklist: “Told in sharp, immediate vignettes, mostly from the boy’s viewpoint, this debut novel captures the contemporary immigration struggle, but it is also an elemental family drama of fury and tenderness, affecting all the characters.”
Publisher’s Weekly: “Woo eschews immigrant clichés to focus on complicated familial relationships and surprising, sympathetic characters; alternating between humor and melancholy, Woo’s text strikes a true chord while drawing readers into its strange, strip-mall world.”
You can read the full text of these reviews here.
It must be obvious to anyone who has been following this series that I have an unabashed affection for the old guard of book publishing—and an endless appetite for their insights, their war stories, and their wisdom. But after a year in which “change” of one kind or another was never far from anybody’s thoughts, it occurred to me that the series could use a shake-up. Why not give the graybeards a breather and talk with some younger agents and editors? And while I was at it, wouldn’t it be more valuable to writers if I could get a few drinks in them first?
That’s my agent on the far right, Renee Zuckerbrot! The illuminating article is from Poets & Writers Magazine, the January/Februrary 2009 issue.
BJ Ward, 41, is the author of “Gravedigger’s Birthday,” “17 Love Poems With No Despair” and “Landing in New Jersey With Soft Hands,” from North Atlantic Books. He grew up in Warren County and lives there in Changewater, which straddles the Musconetcong River. His poems don’t tell us about where we live so much as they create places that are even more compelling.
“For me it’s a question of does the place help define your poetry, or can your poems help redefine the place you live in? Would Rutherford be the same if William Carlos Williams hadn’t lived there?” he said during an interview at the Dodge Poetry Festival.
As luck would have it, a poet who teaches in my home town of Washington (Warren County, NJ) is also featured in the same issue of the Times. Must be kismet!
I’VE been pushing the cart for 28 years now. It started in 1981, when grocery shopping was a family affair: father, mother, two older sisters and me.My father had been living in the States for a number of years by himself, trying to establish a business and a home, so trips to the supermarket were old hat to him. But for the rest of us newcomers, it was quite the opposite. In Seoul, I was used to small corner shops and the outdoor farmers’ market, where earthy bok choy and sea-fresh squid were sold on the street, so to walk into a brightly lighted warehouse in Ocean, N.J., offering an unending variety of goods was at once exciting and daunting. [read more]
An essay I wrote for the New York Times, about grocery shopping with my family.
A good friend and writer just published an essay in the Modern Love section of the New York Times. It’ll come out in print on Sunday (the Sunday Styles section, if you aren’t familiar with the newspaper), but it’s already out online. Enjoy!
A short story of mine, “Translation,” appears in the Fall 2008 issue of Hyphen. For me, the most interesting part of having a story in a magazine is the accompanying art. Initially, the illustration threw me off — it seemed almost scary to me. But then I thought about my story, and seen from the point of view of the mother character, I can see the fear that pervades throughout.
Chloe Bonfield
This is what I enjoy the most about having an artist interpret your work: seeing something that wasn’t there before.
By the way, I wrote the first draft of this story in 2004. Patience is indeed a virtue.
