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

After a Complaint Box essay, the good folks at the Times follow up with various reader reactions.  As of now, there are 151 comments from the readers on the web, and I think these two might be my favorite:

1. Better loud and occupied than silent and empty or worse yet, visited only by cranky Sung J Woo.

2. I’m dismayed see you lead off with yet another hackneyed stereotype of librarians: “…and the occasional shush — delivered with an index finger crossing the lips of a bespectacled, cardigan-wearing librarian.” Get with it, Mr. Woo. I’m a librarian, and I shop at Express.

Way to put me and my best Andy Rooney impression in my place!  I love it.  As a writer, it’s a rare gift to see so many direct opinions from readers.  Thank you to all who have contributed — keep them coming!

The Lost ‘Library Voice’

The library of my youth, in Ocean Township, N.J., was a tomb of peace, where the only sounds were shuffles, whispers and the occasional shush — delivered with an index finger crossing the lips of a bespectacled, cardigan-wearing librarian.

These days, at my local branch in Washington Township, N.J., I have to play an MP3 file in a loop — a sound bite of a hair dryer blasting between my ears — because without the white noise, I would not be able to think straight.

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A “Complaint Box” essay I wrote for the Times.

In a little more than a month, What’s Your Exit? A Literary Detour Through New Jersey will be out and about, and I’ll be reading my essay at the following venues:

Saturday, May 15, 7pm: What’s Your Exit? Book Launch [Jersey City, NJ]

Thursday, May 27, 5pm: What’s Your Exit? NYU Alumni Reading [Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House @ NYC]

Saturday, June 26, 8pm: What’s Your Exit? Reading at The Raconteur [Metuchen, NJ]

You can pick up a pre-order of the book through various bookstores, online and local:

b&n | amazon | indie

A week ago, I was contacted by Contemporary Authors.  They told me I’ll be included in the next edition of the reference and asked me if I wanted to answer some questions for the sidebar part of the entry.

I have fond memories of these reference volumes.  I used CA a number of times when I wrote term papers for my English classes, both in high school and college, so to be actually listed in one is quite an honor.  True, I’ll be one of 112,000 writers listed there, but hey, I’m thrilled to have joined the fray!

And now, the questions they asked and the answers I provided.

What first got you interested in writing?

Two words, one name: Stephen King.  Back when I was a sophomore in high school, I was introduced by a friend to The Dead Zone, the first book I read purely for pleasure, and after reading King’s first short story collection, Night Shift, I attempted to write my first short story.  I’m fairly certain it featured some supernatural storyline, and I’m absolutely certain it was terrible.  But we all have to start out somewhere.

Who or what particularly influences your work?

I met Stewart O’Nan at Cornell back in 1992, when he taught my first creative writing workshop.  His editorial eye is unparalleled, and his body of work inspires me to write truthfully, to stick close to my characters.  Stewart also introduced me to Richard Yates, another writer whose literary currency was brutal, beautiful honesty.

Describe your writing process.

I write an hour before work.  On the days I’m not at work, I write from nine to noon.  But of course, life gets in the way, and sometimes the hour becomes half an hour, but I still try to sit in front of the laptop every day.

What is the most surprising thing you have learned as a writer?

There always seems to be a part – it may be as small as a sentence or as large as an entire chapter of  a novel – that seems so good, so perfect, that I won’t want to change it, even if it isn’t quite working.  But then I finally do rewrite it, and it actually turns out better than what I had before.  There’s nothing so flawlessly written that it cannot be improved.

What kind of effect do you hope your books will have?

When fiction really works, it has the power to make you forget about everything else going on in your life.  For those hours you spend reading, you’re living the life of the people in that book, a completely immersive experience, and perhaps an enlightening one, too.  That’s what I want for my readers.

At this point in my life, I’m used to getting lost.  There are some people who have no idea how lucky they are, blessed with an organic compass embedded into their brains, but I’m not one of them.  To give you an idea of how easily I can lose my bearings, at my neighborhood mall, once I enter a store, on the way back out, I have to pause and remember and look around and figure out whether I need to take a left or a right to begin the always-challenging journey back to my car.  And most likely, there will be more dithering at the parking lot as I struggle to recall just where I parked.

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Yesterday I drank with Tony — that is, I was at Pirate Cat Radio in the Mission District of San Francisco doing an interview.  Up first is Andy Raskin talking about his book The Ramen King and I, and then it’s me, and then we wrap up the show with Rebekah Anderson of Debut Lit, the great folks who put together my west coast launch.

Listen to the podcast (about two hours long, so sit back and enjoy!)

A post I wrote about Star Trek on The Nervous Breakdown:

For the last two weeks, I had intended to write up a little review of the new Star Trek film, but then I got thinking about what this franchise has meant to me. Don’t worry — I’m not some loon who knows the stardate of when Kirk took his first swig of Romulan Ale, and I certainly can’t translate Shakespeare into Klingon. However, I’m not a casual fan, either. I’ve seen enough Star Trek to know what the prime directive means or that Uhura’s name comes from the Swahili word for freedom.

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Nobody weaves literature and music together like Largehearted Boy:

Like many readers today I am drawn to immigrant fiction, but too often the books rely on tired cliches and/or uninspired storytelling. Thankfully, that is not the case with Sung J. Woo’s exceptional debut novel, Everything Asian. Woo’s interconnected stories capture the reality of the immigrant experience while also exploring the Kims’ dysfunctional family, often through the honest eyes of young son David. Woo’s portrait of 80′s suburban New Jersey strip mall culture (told from South Korean immigrants’ perspective) is one of the year’s most surprising novels, the rare book that left me yearning for a sequel.

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I knew how to count from 1 to 10 in English. I could recite the alphabet. And that was about it.

Ronald Reagan was starting his first term as president when I immigrated from South Korea with my mother and two older sisters. We came to reunite with my father, who had set up an Asian gift shop in Manasquan, N.J., and there I was, 10 years old and fresh off the plane, standing behind the bank of showcases in the middle of our store, waiting to serve customers.

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An essay on the realities of retail that I wrote for the Times.

The contract copies of the book (comp copies that are designated in the contract) arrived yesterday, and this morning, I slid them into the top shelf of my bookcase and took this shot, and I was reminded of one of my favorite jobs growing up.

The year before I left for college, I worked at the Barnes & Noble in Shrewsbury, NJ, which, like so many stores nowadays, isn’t there anymore.  Each associate was given a section to take care of, and I ended up with scifi/fantasy, which was great because at that time, I read a lot of it.  I hadn’t discovered Philip K. Dick yet, but I was quite fond of folks like Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker’s series), Isaac Asimov (Foundation series), and Stephen R. Donaldson (Mordant’s Need series).  Not only did I have to keep the shelves in order, I also had to keep tabs on what was selling out and had the freedom to display the books however I chose.  If there was a title I liked,  I faced the cover out, to catch the eyes of the potential customer.

So here’s what I hope, now that I’m standing on the other side — that there’s a book associate out there who likes my book enough to give it the cover treatment.