TIL you gotta be careful when using an ex as a book character

We’re obsessed with this deep dive into the creative process of five major Korean American writers that our friend Brandon Choi did for BuzzFeed in honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Bookmark it for those days when you’re lying on your grubby living room rug and wondering (in your best “when will my husband come from war” voice) ??when will a book agent materialize out of nowhere for moi??* and also for when you’re thinking about the way identity influences l’art.

Obviously you should read the whole thing, but here are our fave quotes…

“I think you have to think about identity in order to write at all.” —Nicole Chung

“The editing process is brutal! It requires a strange distancing, an artificial objectivity.” —Andrew Ahn

“I have no idea how many drafts The Incendiaries went through — it could be 30, it could be 60. In a lot of ways, I don’t want to know.”  —R.O. Kwon

“Early on in the production process, my editor asked if any characters were based on real people, and I said yes. She didn’t seem to have a problem with it. She asked again a few months later, and I gave her the same answer — no problem. But when the book was about to go to the printer, she said the legal department had a problem with this, and I had to rewrite everything about the former girlfriend and disguise her as much as possible. And I had 24 hours to do this.” —Don Lee

“In terms of writing, I think I’ve gone from ignoring my cultural background to inserting it relentlessly because I was so thrilled by the novelty of declaring my full self to the world to writing without forcibly adding or removing anything.” —Karen Chee

*uh you guys do this too, right?

//

Pssst, don’t forget to order your Deez Links tote bags here!!