"I read your book." | Sung J. Woo

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.

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.

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.

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.

Sung J. Woo, a dude, starts reading Jennifer Weiner’s Good in Bed in July. Five months later, he tries to figure out why it took him so long to get through a book that is a veritable page turner. Is it a simple case of men are from Mars, women are from Venus? Or is there something else at work?

A book review/reaction piece I wrote for The Nervous Breakdown.