May-lee Chai and Junse Kim: November 8, 2018 (Updated a year ago)

The Poetry Center presents May-lee Chai and Junse Kim, reading and in conversation. May-lee Chai reads excerpts from her story "Ghost Festivals," from her newly published collection, Useful Phrases for Immigrants (Blair, 2018). Junse Kim reads excerpts from a larger work in progress (part of which was published in Fourteen Hills, 2012). Their readings are followed by an extended conversation with the audience. This program was supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. Note: video exists only for May-lee Chai's portion of this program; the remainder is audio only.

After an introduction from Steve Dickison, May-lee Chai discusses the genesis of her new story collection Useful Phrases for Immigrants, with its stories assembled as a response to the 2016 US Presidential primaries and the consequent rise of anti-immigrant rhetoric in the public sphere. She then reads an excerpt from "Ghost Festivals," featured in the collection.

Junse Kim reads a series of short stories, together comprising part of a larger work in progress, starting with one piece under the working title "Pie Story" (alternately, "Always the Kids"), an unpublished work. He then reads "My Brother's To Tell," as published in Fourteen Hills. He finishes by reading "Who Will Love You Know," an unpublished work.

May-lee Chai and Junse Kim take questions from the audience. They talk on the process of including cultural references in their works and whether they think of a specific reader or not when writing. Chai says she writes to include what has been left out (noting her recent essay "The Missing Images of Chinese Immigrants," in the Paris Review). Kim speaks on the changes he has witnessed in the Mission District as a long-time resident. They then discuss their process of creating and finding inspiration for characters. Steve Dickison notes the longtime collaboration May-lee Chai has had with her father, political scientist Winberg Chai, to which she speaks on the process of co-writing The Girl from Purple Mountain (St. Martin's Press, 2002) and China A to Z (Penguin/Random House, 2007) with him, and the fact that among her father's students at the University of Wyoming was Matthew Shepard. They speak on the relationship of news and real-time media to their writing, further discussing their current creative preoccupations and the responsibility of representation implicit in creative work. They end with comparisons of their individual approaches to writing: Chai as a writer who begins with a question to be explored, and Kim as "a binge writer with no purge."