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

There was a time in my life when I read purely for pleasure.  Before then, I read pretty much for pain, or more accurately, I read and it caused me pain.  Like reading Thoreau’s Walden and Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage for English class – now there was torture.  But thankfully, there was Stephen King and Stephen R. Donaldson and Stephen Coonts and even some authors not named Stephen, and I was in bliss.  These were my lazy high school years.  I remember reading Misery in a single day, from nine in the morning until nine at night, and I had no other desire than to feel every word on the page.  It was pure hedonism.

A review of four books I wrote for The Nervous Breakdown.

1) The latest issue of Kartika Review features a special section called “Meditations of Home,” and you can read my own personal view on this subject.  Fine writers such as Alexander Chee, Don Lee, Min Jin Lee, Yiyun Li, and Ed Lin also participated in the project, so it’s really an issue worth reading.  You can get the journal  in PDF, or better yet, you can have Lulu crank out a paper copy.

2) Speaking of Ed, I had an absolute blast at the The Sulu Series last night!  We were there to celebrate his latest novel Snakes Can’t Run, and there was poetry and fiction and songs, too, and even a short film at the end.  I’m not used to being out in the city so late on a school night, but wow, was it ever worth it.

Matt Blesse

Cynthia Lin

Catzie Vilayphonh

Ed Lin

Ed Lin

Many more pictures here.  I read from a short story titled “Faith,” something I had completed a week ago.  I’m not entirely happy with the story as it stands, so most likely it’ll change, but for those who want to know how it ends (at least for now), you can read it here; search for “END OF SULU READING” to find the exact spot where I stopped reading.

By the way, I should mention that I was inspired to write this story after reading Rhian Ellis‘ novel After Life; in fact, the premise is identical.  I can only dream of writing with Ellis’ prosaic precision, so there is no comparison — everyone should read her fabulous novel.