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Linda Sue Park’s latest title, When My Name was Keoko.
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Linda Sue Park’s Post-Newbery Award Life
By Terry Hong
Special to AsianWeek
Although Linda Sue Park was just nine when she was first published — a haiku for a children’s magazine — it would be almost three decades before she attempted her first book. “My husband told me he was tired of hearing about my writing a book, why didn’t I just do it?” Park recollects. So she took up his challenge in the summer of 1997, and the result was her 1999 debut, Seesaw Girl, a young adult historical novel about an aristocratic girl growing up in 17th-century Korea.
The Kite Fighters followed in 2000, a story about two brothers in 15th-century Korea who compete in the New Year’s kite competition while secretly representing the boy-King. Then her 2001 title, A Single Shard, about a young orphan boy in 13th-century Korea who becomes an acerbic master potter’s apprentice, won the top honor in children’s literature — the coveted John Newbery Medal for 2002. Park became the first Korean American, and the second only Asian Pacific American, to win the award; Dhan Gopal Mukerji won in 1928 for Gay-Neck: The Story of a Pigeon.
Park’s latest title, When My Name was Keoko, which debuted this spring, is about a young girl who lives through the Japanese occupation of her Korean homeland.
AsianWeek: What was your first reaction upon hearing you won?
LSP: I was in my kitchen when I got the call. My first reaction was disbelief. I had to ask the woman to repeat what she had said a couple times before I could believe I had won.
AW: So what’s life been like since winning the Newbery?
LSP: My daily life has changed very dramatically. I used to sit at a computer for three to four hours a day and write, and maybe travel every couple months. But since winning, I’ve been traveling a great deal — a couple weeks every month, depending on the month. Which means I’m writing, but I’m writing speeches and presentations instead of fiction. It’s been a big adjustment. But it’s also been just wonderful and fun; I’ve been meeting so many great people.
AW: I notice you have various English literature degrees from schools in California, Dublin and London. How did you go from academia to writing young adult titles?
LSP: I suppose it’s a sort of hallmark of my career that I never really thought anything through. There was no master plan [laughs]. Part of that was because I had my first child at 25, so I didn’t have the chance to set up the career thing first. Three-and-a-half years later, I had my second child. That’s what I did for many years — be a mom.
For me, writing was a matter of timing. When I started in 1997, my kids were grown and more independent. As for how I came to write for young people, again, I didn’t have a grand plan. I had a story in my head, and I just sat down and wrote. I thought it might be a picture book, but it got even longer. So I thought it might be a short story for adults, but it [kept getting] longer. When it was done, I realized I had a young adult novel [Seesaw Girl].
AW: Growing up in Illinois in the 1960s and 1970s, you had very little exposure to other Korean Americans or Korean culture. Ironically, all four of your books have been set in historical Korea. How did that come about?
LSP: My family maintained many aspects of Korean culture such as food, holidays and later, I realized, a Korean value system. But we were never exposed to much Korean history. When I was young, my parents gave me a copy of Frances Carpenter’s Tales of a Korean Grandmother. When I read it, I was interested — and horrified — to learn that historically Korean girls were not allowed to leave their homes. That stuck in my head. I wanted to know what it might have been like to live a life like that. So 27 years later, I began Seesaw Girl.
The impetus to start writing was having my own children. Because we were living in London when they were born, they got to know their father’s Irish side of the family. I knew that we would eventually move back to the States, so they would get their American history. But there was little I could tell them about Korea. So I started to read and write things about Korea so I could tell them.
AW: How do you integrate motherhood with a busy career?
LSP: It’s a matter of being disciplined and taking the writing seriously, as you would any job. When you’re at home, there’s a tendency to not take it seriously. When I started writing, I had a full-time teaching job in the morning, then came home to write. I tried to treat it as a professional job; I didn’t do errands at that time, didn’t do carpool pick-ups. At first, it was difficult training — it took three to four months to make it a habit with everyone. I knew we were successful when I would come out of the den at 4 p.m. and my kids would say, “Mom’s home from work.” If I was going to give it a go as a serious writer, I was determined that my efforts were not going to be wishy-washy.
AW: Your latest book, When My Name Was Keoko, is about a very controversial subject. Do you think winning the Newbery made it easier to get it published?
LSP: Having Keoko finished long before the Newbery was announced was a tremendous relief. Keoko was a very different project for me. I was writing in first person about a fairly recent time, so people were still alive to interview. It took close to three years to write, compared to six to nine months for the other three books.
I never thought of Keoko as controversial; I was basically telling my parents’ story of growing up in Korea [Park’s mother’s Japanese name during the occupation was Keoko]. When the book was about to come out, my editor said I might want to start thinking about answers to questions I would get about the controversial nature of the book. My reaction was “Huh?”
AW: What’s next for you?
LSP: I have five picture books coming in 2003, including The Firekeeper’s Son and Mung Mung. For now, I’m basically enjoying this year.
For more information on Linda Sue Park, visit www.lindasuepark.com.
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