Literature
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Author Talks: Yeon Somin
Tuesday, November 12, 2024 | 5:00 PM- Youtube Video:
Author photo credit: © Han Sehee Rising Korean literary star Yeon Somin makes her English-language debut with The Healing Season of Pottery, a feel-good story about a young woman finding solace and a sense of self through art. The winner of the prestigious Korea New Writers Award (for Lazy Kinko), Yeon’s latest, translated by the award-winning Clare Richards, is being published in eighteen countries. As elegantly molded and deeply satisfying as pottery itself, this shimmering work of comfort fiction shows that... Read More -
Author Talks: Jungeun Yun & Shanna Tan
Friday, November 1, 2024 | 12:00 PM- Youtube Video:
Welcome to Marigold Mind Laundry, where we wash away the stains from your heart. In this enchanting tale—a blockbuster bestseller in Korea—the enigmatic owner of a magical laundromat that erases people’s painful memories must learn to find her own peace before she can truly help others. Born with mysterious powers she does not know how to control, young Jieun accidentally causes her family to vanish. She vows to live a million lives in search of them. One night, she brings the Marigold Mind Laundry into... Read More -
The Other Korea: Stories from the Diaspora
Saturday, October 12, 2024 | 3:00 PMJoin authors Ery Shin (Spring On the Peninsula) and Christine Ma-Kellams (The Band) as they discuss their books and stories from the Korean diaspora. Longlisted for the 2024 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, Spring On the Peninsula is Ery Shin's debut novel about a desultory libertine who mourns a failed relationship over the course of two harsh winters. In this unprecedented portrait of millennials living in Seoul, Shin captures contemporary Seoul in all of its glory and turmoil, and this daringly... Read More -
Author Talks: Miye Lee
Tuesday, July 9, 2024 | 5:00 PM- Youtube Video:
* Indies Introduce Pick for Summer 2024 “This delightful story transcends…..A comforting story of dreams, lives, and the ways people process all that reality offers them.”—Kirkus Review What if there was a store that sold dreams? Which would you buy? And who might you become when you wake up? A captivating story that will leave a lingering magical feeling in readers' minds, Miye Lee's The Dallergut Dream Department Store is the first book in a bestselling duology for anyone exhausted from the reality of... Read More -
Writing Short Stories with Gina Chung and Yun Ko-eun
Tuesday, June 18, 2024 | 6:30 PMIs the short story a fiction writer’s laboratory where you can experiment with characters, plots, and ideas? or is it an art form of its own, telling a complete story in just a few words? What does a short story need to have in order to be successful that is different from a novel? And what makes the writers return to this form of writing again and again? Join us for a conversation between Gina Chung (Green Frog, Sea Change) and Yun Ko-eun (Table for One, The Disaster Tourist) about the art of short story... Read More -
June Hur: A Crane Among Wolves with Ellen Oh
Monday, May 13, 2024 | 6:00 PM- Youtube Video:
Author Photo: © Julie Anna Tang | "Award-winner Hur’s latest historical intrigue is well researched and doesn’t shy away from depicting elements of this real king’s brutal history, and the resulting tale is immersive, intense, and engaging. A page-turner." —Kirkus Reviews To save her sister, a teen girl becomes entangled in a political conspiracy with an enigmatic prince in this fiery new YA novel. June Hur, bestselling author of The Red Palace, returns with a devastating and pulse-pounding tale based on... Read More -
Author Talks: Park Seolyeon
Tuesday, April 30, 2024 | 5:00 PM- Youtube Video:
Author Photo: Studio Gaga A millennial turned magical girl must combat climate change and credit card debt in A Magical Girl Retires, a delightful, witty, and wildly imaginative ode to magical girl manga by Park Seolyeon.Our protagonist is a normal girl; that is, a 29-year-old millennial woman drowning in credit card debt and unable to find a job after the pandemic rendered her unemployed. She has no family left, no friends, no prospects. One night she goes to Seoul’s Mapo Bridge to end all her troubles—until... Read More -
Author Talks: Yun Ko-eun with Lizzie Buehler
Tuesday, April 16, 2024 | 5:00 PM- Youtube Video:
"Weirdly wonderful and wonderfully weird."— Kirkus Reviews In the first short-story collection of hers to be translated into and published in English, South Korean author Yun Ko-eun conjures up slightly off-kilter worlds tucked away in the corners of everyday life. Table for One is bursting with images that toe the line between realism and the fantastic, comedy and an element of the surreal, interwoven with the hopelessness and loneliness that pervades the protagonists’ decidedly mundane lives. Mixing... Read More -
Crystal Hana Kim: The Stone Home with Susan Choi
Tuesday, April 9, 2024 | 6:30 PM- Youtube Video:
Author photo: Nina Subin “It is a privilege to read Crystal Hana Kim’s fiction, which both edifies and enlightens.”— Min Jin Lee A hauntingly poetic family drama and coming-of-age story that reveals a dark corner of South Korean history through the eyes of a small community living in a reformatory center, The Stone Home is a stunning work of great emotional power from Crystal Hana Kim, the critically acclaimed author of If You Leave Me. In 2011, Eunju Oh opens her door to greet a stranger: a young Korean... Read More -
Starry Field with Margaret Juhae Lee and Grace M. Cho
Wednesday, March 27, 2024 | 6:30 PM- Youtube Video:
In her intimate and touching debut, Starry Field: A Memoir of Lost History, journalist Margaret Juhae Lee uncovers her family’s lost history that had been buried in the darkness of Korea’s colonial decades. Growing up in Houston, Margaret Juhae Lee was never told about her grandfather, Lee Chul Ha. His memory was submerged in 1936 Korea, when Lee Chul Ha died a disgraced communist rebel, leaving Margaret's grandmother widowed with their two young sons. To his surviving family Lee Chul Ha was a criminal. As... Read More