SELECTED ESSAYS
I FELT LIKE AN INCOMPETENT MOTHER. THEN I LEARNED HOW NOT TO FEEL SO ALONE. – THE WASHINGTON POST, ON PARENTING / PERSPECTIVE (April 23, 2019)
I found my calling at Whole Foods.
Fourteen years ago, one of my kids developed anaphylactic allergies to nuts, and the other was diagnosed with celiac disease and ulcerative colitis. These issues required a stringent diet that forbid not only gluten (which, back then, almost no one had heard of) but sugars, starches, grains and nonfermented dairy.
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WITH HER SON SUFFERING FROM A MYSTERIOUS ILLNESS, ONE MOTHER FINDS HOPE IN AN EXPERIMENTAL TREATMENT – VOGUE MAGAZINE (February 2019)
Our baby is two days old when our pediatrician sits us down and says, “We got an abnormal test result.” The terror I feel at these words must show because she immediately adds, “But it’s a screening, not a real test—definitely not definitive. Very high false-positive rates.”
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HOW NOT TO WRITE COURTROOM SCENES – CRIMEREADS / LITHUB (April 17, 2019)
I used to enjoy writing before I became a writer. I’ve been writing all my life. But all academically-oriented things geared toward conveying information—college newspaper articles, school essays, and endless legal research memos and briefs after I became a lawyer. I cared about being clear and precise, structuring my ideas so they flowed logically. If I had any anxiety about writing, it was around researching and forming a coherent argument, never around the writing itself.
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THE STATE OF WOMEN IN CRIME FICTION: A CONVERSATION WITH LAURA LIPPMAN, ALAFAIR BURKE, & ALISON GAYLIN – THE THRILL BEGINS (April 3, 2019)
I’ve been writing and publishing short stories and essays in literary magazines, glossies, and newspapers for about ten years, and during that time, I’ve read a lot about gender disparities in the world of publishing, whether it be in terms of publication opportunities, reviews, or awards. My forthcoming debut novel, MIRACLE CREEK, is a blend of literary fiction, courtroom thriller, and murder mystery, and as I’ve been getting acquainted with the world of crime fiction, I’ve wondered how the gender dynamics play out in this particular field.
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7 INCENDIARY BOOKS ABOUT FIRES – ELECTRIC LIT (April 16, 2019)
My obsession with fires and burns comes from the accident that happened when I was 10, during our last winter in Korea. School had just let out, and I’d walked into the shed outside our one-room home that served as our kitchen. Standing on the uneven concrete floor, I caught a whiff of a broth cooking on the knee-high stove and crouched down to see what it was when my school bag caught the pot handle.
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WHY AMERICA NEEDS A FEMALE PRESIDENT – THE NEW YORK TIMES, OPINION (November 2016)
When I was in third grade, my teacher asked who among us wanted to run for class president. I raised my hand along with a few boys, and the teacher told me to come to the front of the class. He turned me around to face the class and slapped my hands with a ruler, hard, and said, “That’s for thinking that a girl can be president of anything.”
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SCOTCH TAPE – THE SOUTHERN REVIEW (Winter 2014)
I was nine the day I noticed the wrinkles on my forehead. I was in the room that comprised our entire home, in the Gwanak District of Seoul. The floor was covered wall-to-wall with yellowish-beige linoleum printed with an intricate red floral pattern, each hexagonal flower about the size of a baby’s head. (I know this from baby pictures of me lying down; my head just covers one of those shapes.)
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DEATH BY THE CHOKING GAME – SALON.COM (October 2013)
It was the kind of day you’d never remember if it hadn’t ended the way it did. A mother with her two sons, 13 and 11, on a Monday in August. Shopping for school supplies and clothes at Target and Abercrombie. Lunch at Subway. Grocery shopping at Whole Foods. The mom helping the younger kid with his summer Spanish homework in the family room; the older kid upstairs in his room.
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FROM KOREAN TO KYOPO: NOTES FOR GIRLS IN TRANSITION – ASIAN AMERICAN LITERARY REVIEW (Fall/Winter 2012)
The flight from Seoul to New York is fourteen hours.
*
Fourteen hours is not enough time to memorize all fifty Essential Phrases in your “All the English You’ll Ever Need!” book. Seven or eight phrases, maybe. Nine, at most.
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IF MY BULLIES COULD SEE ME NOW – WINNER, GLAMOUR ESSAY CONTEST (July 2012)
Her name was Yuk-Fong. That was the problem. Except I didn’t know it was a problem, which was another problem.
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THE “MOMMY TRACK” TURNS 21 – SLATE.COM (March 2010)
The “mommy track” turned 21 this month. Should we celebrate or rue its coming of age?
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MISSING BONES – GULF STREAM MAGAZINE (Fall 2011)
One, two, three, four, five…All parents do it. As soon as their baby is born, they count the tiny fingers and toes. Only with my parents, when they got to four, they stopped. And toweled off the goo. And said, “Oh, Doctor—could you come here?” Because I was born with missing knucklebones on my fourth toes. A genetic defect.
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THE SURPRISE IN WRITING – THE WRITER’S GUIDE (November 2011)
I never wanted to be a writer.
Growing up, I didn’t keep a writing journal or create characters in my head. Writing was a means to an end: I wrote essays to get into college, then articles so I could list “Reporter” in my law school application, then law review pieces to include in my résumé, then briefs to persuade judges to give money to my clients.
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SELECTED SHORT FICTION
BURIED VOICE – WABASH PRIZE FOR FICTION 2013, SYCAMORE REVIEW; NOMINEE, PUSHCART PRIZE (Fall/Winter 2013)
My twin brother John has been holding the antique stethoscope to our grandmother’s grave mound for over ten minutes. He looks like a doctor over a pregnant belly, trying to find the fetal heartbeat. He keeps squeezing his eyes shut in focused frustration and thumping the chest piece down on different spots on the mound.
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READ REVIEW in the Ploughshares “The Best Story I Read in a Lit Mag” Series
OPTIMISM – SYCAMORE REVIEW (Fall/Winter 2014)
Laura started the experiment three weeks after Jimmy died. She would have started it sooner, but it took time to gather the supplies—20-pound sack of rice, dump truck toy, baby monitors, carseat, and computerized doll that looked and cried like her dead two-year old son.
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READ REVIEW in the Ploughshares “The Best Story I Read in a Lit Mag” Series
HOW TO MAKE A FAUX LUNCH FOR TWO CHILDREN – [PANK] (August 2012)
9:00. First, try not to be late for preschool kiss & play drop-off. Even one minute late, you might have to parallel park your minivan, and you’re not so good at that. You might bump into that pole by the edge of the sidewalk again, and your husband will chuckle and shake his head when he notices the growing gray spot on the corner of the back bumper…
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BACKWARD – NEW LETTERS (FINALIST, GLIMMER TRAIN VERY SHORT FICTION CONTEST) (Fall 2011)
Miyoung and her mother had the same laugh. Not a giggle or a chuckle, but a belly laugh an octave below their speaking voices. Miyoung, being only eight, laughed in a higher pitch, about five steps above her mother’s. When they laughed together, they formed a chord—joyful, like a G-major.
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