Category Archives: Uncategorized

A Q&A With Four Young Literary Agents

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P&W CoverIt 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.

Region’s Poets Convey a Sense of Place

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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.

[read more]

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!

Not Just a Place for Food, but for Bonding

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Generations
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.

Whirlwind

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Originally published in The Nervous Breakdown

Fourteen years ago, I started an online magazine.  Maybe that doesn’t sound like a big deal now, since anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can create an online presence, but back in March of 1994, it wasn’t so easy.  Because Netscape Navigator wasn’t even at 1.0 — it was in beta.  And Internet Explorer didn’t exist.  Email ran on mainframes and VAX machines, and Gopher was the protocol of choice when it came to delivery of information in a menu-like interface.

Anyway, I had to come up with a name for the magazine, and I chose Whirlwind.  I’m trying to remember why I picked that name, but honestly, I can’t recall, though I would like to say now that I regret choosing it.  I mean it’s not a terrible name, but couldn’t I pick something cooler, like Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head?  I mean I was in college, for God’s sake.  It’s just sad.

Continue reading →

Headshots

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Two posts in one day?  Surely the apocalypse can’t be far.

Actually this is long overdue.  I’ve been working with a phenomenally talented guy named Noah Dempewolf.  I met him through KoreAm Journal (which, by the way, still welcomes your support), where he illustrated a pair of my articles.  I love his work, so it was a great pleasure to have him draw up portraits for two of the main characters in the novel, David and Sue.  These wonderful drawings are featured in a broadsheet that features the first chapter of the novel.  I plan to use it for marketing purposes as the pub date nears.

David

Sue

I should also mention that Noah did the banner graphic for this site as well.  The guy can do it all.

The Cover

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I finally have a cover for the book, and lemme tell ya, it wasn’t easy.  There were three other versions, one that even I attempted to mock up, but the “kid cover,” as I’m now calling it, was the one that was finally chosen.  The first one had four pairs of Asian shoes and was deemed too “chick-litty.”  The second one had three pairs of shoes, two Asian and one pair of Converse Chuck Taylors, but that, too, was ultimately too chick-lit.  The one that I had created included a pair of graphics by an artist I was working with, and it unfortunately gave off a graphic-novel vibe that threatened to confuse potential readers.

I believe the boy is holding a fish fillet sandwich.  Don’t ask.

The Art in Fiction

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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.

Chapter logos

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In 2007, I wrote a Lives article for The New York Times Magazine.  At the time, they were using Bob Hambly for their simple yet effective black-and-white logos on top of each essay, and thinking of that logo made me think about having something similar to that in my novel.  After some searching, I found the perfect person to draw these up: my talented wife.  So here they are, a collage of the graphics that appear on each and every chapter of Everything Asian.

Loose proofs

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Has it already been a month and a half since I made my last entry?  How the hell do people write every day in their blogs?  It’s nothing short of astonishing.

Anyway, the loose proofs came today.  At this stage, the book is looking like a book, and here’s the strange thing: it doesn’t look real.  As I get closer to having this manuscript turned into an actual novel, the more surreal it all seems.  On every other page, I see my name, right there.  And on the other side, the title of the book I’ve been working on for what seems like forever.  It’s all utterly, terrifically strange.