Q&A with Rosa Kwon Easton

 

 

 

 

Rosa Kwon Easton is the author of the new novel White Mulberry. Also a lawyer, she lives in Southern California.

 

Q: What inspired you to write White Mulberry, and how did you create your character Miyoung?

 

A: I found some old, faded documents on my father’s desk and learned that they were my Korean grandmother’s old Japanese nursing and midwife certificates, dating back to the late 1930s.

 

I knew my grandmother had lived in Japan and my father was born there, but what I didn’t know was that my grandmother was a single mother working as a nurse and raising a son alone in an unwelcoming country.

 

I yearned for stories of strong, female heroines like my grandmother but couldn’t find many growing up, or even as an adult. That’s when I knew I had to write White Mulberry.

 

My interviews with my grandmother formed the basis of my character Miyoung. Even though my grandmother was reluctant to share her story at first because it was painful, she eventually opened up, and Miyoung was born.

 

My grandmother led a remarkable life of resistance and resilience, and I crafted a character that I believe was true to her spirit and filled gaps in her history with my imagination.

 

 I was able to write about Miyoung’s journey to a new country at a young age because I experienced similar struggles growing up as an ethnic minority in the US. I hope readers will be inspired by Miyoung’s courage to be herself in a society that didn’t readily accept her, just as I was.

 

Q: How did you research the novel, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?

 

A: I spoke to many of my Korean relatives who lived in Japan while I was studying abroad in Kyoto in college, and subsequently during family visits. I read books on Koreans in Japan in graduate school while earning my master’s degree in international affairs.

 

In the last 10 years while I was writing this novel, I dove into history books, scholarly articles, memoirs, and fictional accounts of how Koreans lived in Japan during the colonial period. These resources deeply informed my research for this novel.

 

What surprised me the most about my research was that discrimination against Koreans in Japan is still prevalent today. On a recent trip to Kyoto, one of my second cousins recalled that she couldn’t gain employment at a clothing manufacturing company because she was Korean.

 

She is a third generation Korean born in Japan, but regardless of whether they keep their Korean names, pass as Japanese, or intermarry with Japanese, many Korean Japanese continue to live as outsiders in the only country they know and the land they call home. It’s important that people are aware that this problem still exists.

Q: The writer Lisa See said of the book, “A beautiful and deeply researched novel…How does a woman protect her family, honor her heritage, and save herself? If you loved Pachinko, you’ll love White Mulberry.” What do you think of that assessment?

 

A: I think Lisa See’s assessment is correct because White Mulberry is similar to Pachinko in that it explores the Korean ethnic minority living in Japan and their struggles for acceptance over decades of oppression.

 

However, I believe my novel is different in a few crucial ways. First, it closely follows the point of view of the spirited heroine who forges her own path when forced to make the impossible choice of saving herself or leaving her child.

 

My novel is also more a coming-of-age story of a Korean girl who is forced to conceal her true identity and "pass" as Japanese, while Pachinko is a multi-generational novel. White Mulberry is also inspired by my Korean grandmother’s life, so it’s based on a true story.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the story?

 

A: My hope is that readers feel empowered to trust who they are and claim their unique place in the world. Miyoung’s courage to save her family from racial injustice despite grave danger is timely and inspiring given that our gender, race and identity are still being challenged today.

 

I hope this book inspires hope that tolerance, perseverance, and dreams can take root in the roughest soil and blossom in the toughest conditions, just like a beautiful mulberry tree.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: My second book is a sequel, but also a stand-alone novel. Red Seal continues the story of White Mulberry as Miyoung, a 26-year-old widow and single mother, and Ko-chan, her 6-year-old son, return to Korea and strive to claim their true selves, symbolized by a name seal, against the backdrop of WWII, the Korean War and eventually immigration to America.

 

Also inspired by a true story and told through alternating chapters in Miyoung and Ko-chan’s voices, it spans 30 years of Asian and American history and explores themes of family, identity, separation, and belonging.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I share a Maltipoo (Maltese/Poodle mix) named Joey with my brother, who lives about an hour away. When we go on vacation, we leave Joey with my brother’s family, and vice versa. Joey loves his two families and is so happy every time he sees us. Dogs are amazing, loyal creatures, and the best writing companions.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Q&A with John E. Stith

 

 

 

John E. Stith is the author of the new novel Disavowed. His other books include the novel Manhattan Transfer. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write Disavowed, and how did you create your character Nick Sparrow?

 

A: I’ve long enjoyed series books about knight errant characters, people who travel through a series of adventures in which they leave the world a better place for the innocent and a worse place for villains.

 

I grew up on The Lone Ranger and Have Gun Will Travel and moved on to John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee novels, Robert B. Parker’s Spencer, and Lee Child’s Jack Reacher.

 

Writing about the near-future is more and more challenging today, given the accelerating rate of change, so I decided this book would be far enough into the future that we have a multi-planet civilization and aliens.

 

When I considered a character who gets into various difficult situations and who wasn’t a carbon copy of a pre-existing character, I decided on a military guy who’s also a doctor. His background gives him training in stress situations and the medical career puts him in the camp of wanting to help others.

 

I wanted him to be unique in other ways, so I gave him a past to run from, and I provided him an AI assistant. I had the book complete just before the ChatGPT revolution came along, but I’ve written a lot about AI characters before, mostly in Memory Blank and Naught for Hire.

 

Q: How did you create the world in which the novel is set?

 

A: Much as I created the character to fit the kind of book I wanted to write, I picked the world the same way. I wanted a big canvas, so Nick could encounter interesting and varied situations. I didn’t want the adventures confined to one planet, so we have a space-faring society.

 

Limiting this future to speed-of-light travel would mean lots of delays for suspended animation or the long tales of generation ships, so I assumed we will find a way around that limit. (Quantum mechanics gives us regular supply of amazing new discoveries, so this doesn’t seem too far out.)

 

Once I had the broad strokes, I filled in some of the gaps with smaller details.

Q: Did you know how the story would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?

 

A: I had an overall idea of how the book would end, but I didn’t know the specifics. I liken this to planning to hitchhike across country with the goal of getting to, say New York, alive. I don’t know early on if one of the rides will have multiple flat tires or get carjacked, but I plan for the best.

 

Q: The writer David Zindell said of the book, “Disavowed tells the story of an intelligent and resourceful man trying to survive against almost impossible odds.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I’m very pleased with it. In real life, it would be cool if everywhere I went I saw an endless string of green lights ahead, but in fiction we want obstacles. Overcoming the munchies one afternoon isn’t a very satisfying accomplishment because the hurdle is miniscule and the stakes are not in evidence.

 

In adventure fiction, we get more fully engaged when the character is under threat, if there seems to be the real possibility he or she won’t survive. It’s not cathartic for a character to overcome a dim, lazy antagonist, so the opposition and the hurdles need to be smart and strong.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I have a near-future thriller in the formative stages, but some of my time lately has been consumed with seeing Tiny Time Machine: The Complete Trilogy through the final stages of the pipeline (and working on a graphic novel version) while also getting Disavowed finally out the door.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: A team is trying to put together a deal to make a TV pilot from my novel Manhattan Transfer (about the kidnapping of Manhattan). They, too, face significant obstacles, so I’m supporting them by crossing my fingers.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Dec. 1

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Dec. 1, 1949: Jan Brett born.

Q&A with Zoje Stage

 

Photo by Gabrianna Dacko

 

 

Zoje Stage is the author of the new children's book My UnderSlumberBumbleBeast. Her other books include the novel Baby Teeth. She lives in Pittsburgh.

 

Q: What inspired you to write My UnderSlumberBumbleBeast, and how did you create your character Pru?

 

A: My UnderSlumberBumbleBeast actually predates my debut novel, Baby Teeth! I'd wanted to give the child character of that novel, Hanna, a favorite book—something her dad would read with her—but after considering copyright issues it became obvious that I needed to use something of my own.

 

I had an unpublished short story that seemed perfect, about a girl trying to make sense of the sounds she hears at night coming from beneath her bed. The creatures themselves are so odd and whimsical, so I knew I needed my main character, Pru, to be just as creative.

 

Pru is part scientist who wants to think rationally about the irrational, and part artist, able to envision things that other people can't see.

 

Q: What do you think J.E. Larson's illustrations add to the story?

 

A: They add everything! This was always meant to be an illustrated book, and J.E. took the assignment and ran with it. He was so thorough in his worldbuilding for these creatures, and his designs are the perfect combination of adorable and ghoulish.

 

I think they add a lot of enjoyment, while also providing readers of all ages with a clear vision of the story.

Q: You've written for adults and for kids--do you have a preference?

 

A: In general I'd say probably adults, as I can really flesh out complex character studies. But it's fun to step away sometimes from my darker stories and let my imagination run wild.

 

Q: What do you hope kids take away from the story?

 

A: I hope kids see a bit of themselves in Pru—whether it's her creativity, inventiveness, compassion, adventurousness, or love of finding new hobbies. And I hope for those who may be afraid of the dark, or of odd sounds coming from within their own home, that they find a friendlier possibility for what may be lurking out there.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I'm in the early stages of writing a new novel. It's too soon to talk about it… I'm a bit superstitious until I'm positive a novel is really going to work!

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Though the back cover says it's for children 7-10, adult readers have been very enthusiastic about this book! It's part the connection between this and Baby Teeth and Dear Hanna, and part a sort of ageless, creepy fun that My UnderSlumberBumbleBeast taps into.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Zoje Stage.

Q&A with Stephen Dando-Collins

 

 

Stephen Dando-Collins is the author of the new book The Buna Shots: The Amazing Story Behind Two Photographs That Changed the Course of World War Two. His many other books include Caligula: The Mad Emperor of Rome. He lives in Tasmania, Australia.

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Buna Shots?

 

A: I first became interested in the war in New Guinea in the late 1990s, when the daughter of a war correspondent who’d served there gave me a book he’d written about the campaign.

 

I didn’t begin to think about writing this book until 2011, when I was visiting the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. I was there to locate the name, on the wall of honor, of a great-uncle of mine who had died fighting in World War One.

 

Standing in front of the section containing my great-uncle’s name were four men from Papua New Guinea, descendants of the so-called “Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels,” thousands of young Papuan men who had voluntarily worked as carriers, helping the American and Australian service personnel who fought the invading Imperial Japanese Army. These Papuans kindly allowed my wife to take a photo of them – it’s in the book.

 

Remarking on the coincidence, I set my thoughts to researching a book about the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels and the 1942-43 Battle of Buna-Gona – said to be the battle with the highest casualty rate of any World War II conflict.

 

Q: How did you research the book, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?

 

A: The Buna Shots involved 11 years of research. Ten years in, I began three years of writing the manuscript, all the while working on my latest books on ancient Roman, Greek and Persian history, having just received a three-book contract for them from my American publishers.

 

My starting point was the photograph that appears on the front of The Buna Shots, George Silk’s shot of blinded Australian soldier George “Dick” Whittington being helped along a track near Buna in PNG by Papuan carrier Raphael Oimbari.

 

I subsequently looked into American Life magazine photographer George Strock’s Buna Beach shot of three dead American soldiers – called by Time magazine in 2014 “The photograph that won World War Two.”

 

Both photographers were on record speaking about the circumstances of the taking of their photos, and both wrote contextual notes about all their shots. After the war, George Silk in particular was interviewed several times about his by then famous photo.

 

I consulted numerous books, war diaries, etc., about the war in New Guinea. In addition, I was able to comb countless newspaper and magazine reports about the campaign, written by war correspondents on the spot, often the same day that action took place.

While the war correspondents’ reports were not always 100 percent accurate, they were always revealing, often about the correspondents and photographers, and were always more accurate and factual than the official communiqués released by General Douglas MacArthur’s GHQ.

 

I came to realize these two pictures by Silk and Strock had been taken with a few miles of each other, within six days of each other. But, at first, I had no idea the fates of the two pictures, and their photographers, had been inextricably linked. When I discovered those links, I knew I had a heck of a story unfolding before me, about truth in war.

 

The deeper I delved, the more I discovered concerted efforts in both Australia and the US to hide the brutal truth about this war from the people at home, to hide the fact that the enemy was no pushover and was killing thousands of our boys in desperate fighting.

 

I also discovered that US President Franklin D. Roosevelt believed the American people had the right to know the truth, while Australia’s prime minister John Curtin set out to keep the Australian people in the dark, clamping down on wartime censorship of the Australian media just as Roosevelt was easing censorship in the United States.

 

Q: What do you think these particular photographs say about World War II photography?

 

A: For all the wartime photos of things being blown up, the physical carnage of war, the mass death and destruction, it is the human element that makes great war pictures stand out. Both Silk’s photo and Strock’s photo tug at the heartstrings, making us pause, drawing us in.

 

Silk took his shot quickly, without even looking into his viewfinder. Strock took his time with his photo, composing it for best visual effect. The end results were the same. Both pictures freeze a moment in time, and are, to this day, absolutely arresting.

 

Q: What do you see as the legacy of George Silk and George Strock today?

 

A: Silk was insanely brave, walking into battle alongside troops armed only with a camera. There would be few if any photographers today who took the risks he took.

 

While Silk was a driven personality and certainly didn’t let anyone else horn in on his territory, Strock was hugely generous, pushing for Silk’s photo to be published by Life, recommending numerous talented school friends to work at Life as combat photographers.

 

In a cut-throat world where it was and is dog eat photographic dog, Strock was pretty unique and an example to us all of helping our colleagues.

 

The one thing the two men both had in common was their determination to do everything they could to get their important banned photos published. They never gave up.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I have three different new historical books at different stages, which is pretty normal for me. They range across ancient and 19th century history.

 

There is one particular book on a surprising aspect of Roman history – about eight of Rome’s most famous writers who all lived in the same era, and who chose to remain silent when they could have spoken out against tyranny –a book that I have researched and am keen to write.

 

Alas, my New York literary agents can’t find an interested publisher at present. That will no doubt change, one day.

 

In the end, time, and publishers, will determine what is published next. With The Buna Shots being my 48th book, my wife, Louise, and I have agreed that we should have some sort of celebration for book number 50. But which book that ends up being, I have no idea.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: We are currently talking to filmmakers about a potential TV documentary based around the book, and possibly also a movie. It’s certainly a very visual story, and, as one reviewer has said, it reads like a high octane thriller. So, you never know, it may just end up on the screen one day.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Stephen Dando-Collins. 

Nov. 30

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Nov. 30, 1835: Mark Twain born.

Q&A with Stephanie Gorton

 

Photo by Sasha Israel

 

Stephanie Gorton is the author of the new book The Icon and the Idealist: Margaret Sanger, Mary Ware Dennett, and the Rivalry That Brought Birth Control to America. She also has written the book Citizen Reporters. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Icon and the Idealist, and how was the book’s title chosen?

 

A: Two forces pulled me into the story: the fascinating central relationship between Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett, and my consuming interest in reproductive rights activism.

 

Sanger and Dennett essentially launched the very first movement for reproductive rights in America. Questions of faith, the law, ethics, medical protocols, and beliefs about gender roles flared up in the battle for birth control, just as they now do in arguments over abortion.

 

We tend to think of the reproductive rights movement as starting in the ‘60s or with Roe v. Wade in 1973. It actually goes back a full century earlier, from when Sanger and Dennett formed the birth control movement in the mid-1910s and carried it to its first legal victory in 1936.

 

I’ve long supported reproductive justice, and becoming a parent only solidified that. Around five years ago, early in my second pregnancy, I was reading a lot about early 20th century feminists and I landed on the story of Mary Ware Dennett. She quickly became the emotional center of my narrative.

 

Sanger enjoyed fame, she was good at self-mythologizing, and her skills and passion both served the movement well. However, she pursued a narrower goal than Dennett: Sanger’s campaign would ultimately put birth control access in the hands of doctors, who would dispense contraceptives according to their own judgment and preferences, while Dennett wanted birth control access to be free of any gatekeeping, even by the medical establishment.

 

It was remarkable to go through Dennett’s archives and realize how fiercely private she was in contrast to Sanger, how she shunned publicity when she was working on this very bold campaign for birth control and revolutionizing sex education on the side.

 

Dennett had a powerful and deeply American vision for taking birth control from a place of silence, of taboo and restriction, to a place of open, affordable access. She was driven by events in her own life, and by an abiding belief in the full citizenship of women.

 

Learning about her, and how influential she was on Sanger, made me want to push back against the Famous Person format of retelling history. Too often, conspicuous leadership and well-resourced charisma are valued at the expense of more impactful forces, of relationships and rivalries and efforts that failed, but were nevertheless, visionary.

 

The title was surprisingly easy! For my first book, Citizen Reporters, there was much more back and forth with the publishing team. For The Icon and the Idealist, my publisher suggested I come up with something along the lines of “The X and the Y,” and very quickly it fell into place.

 

Q: How did you research the book, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?

 

A: The guiding hand for my research was my curiosity about what cultural factors affected the rise of the birth control movement, and a basic human nosiness about what Sanger and Dennett may have been like as people.

 

Early on, I spent a great deal of time in institutional archives like the Schlesinger Library in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Sophia Smith Library at Smith College, trawling through papers and artifacts left by my two main characters. 

 

In 2020, that pleasant routine was disrupted by the pandemic. Institutional archives shut down to non-affiliates. That prompted me to reach out to Dennett’s descendants, and I began a series of visits to Dennett family archives in New Hampshire and Utah.

 

Making contact with the curator of the Dennett Family Archives, Sharon Spaulding, was a spectacular stroke of luck. Through her, I was even able to interview one of Dennett’s grandchildren, Nancy Dennett. Sharon’s generosity and wisdom truly made the book possible. 

 

Another heroic resource was a research librarian at the Providence Public Library. She waived the typical limits on interlibrary loans and helped me get hold of boxes of microfilm and hundreds of secondary sources, from articles to dissertations to books of all stripes.

 

We tend to think of research as a solitary undertaking, and I do enjoy being alone with a box of old letters, but researching this book was a real joy because of the collaborations with experts, descendants, and librarians along the way.

 

Q: The writer Megan Marshall said of the book, “There is no time like the present for Stephanie Gorton’s brilliantly conceived dual biography of the fiercely formidable women, Mary Ware Dennett and Margaret Sanger, who brought the fight for reproductive rights to the American public in the early twentieth century.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: That description means a lot to me because of the person who wrote it. Megan Marshall’s books have not only taught me so much, but kept me spellbound at the same time.

 

Recently I found a fan email I sent her after reading The Peabody Sisters 10 years ago. I wrote something along the lines of How did you do that? And she wrote, “Find out what happened when, in a very precise way, and then set the story going!” I still tell myself that all the time. 

 

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between Sanger and Dennett, and what do you see as their legacies today?

 

A: The best single-word descriptor for their dynamic is probably “fraught.” But to expand on that, it’s important to note that early on, they had a warm and sympathetic relationship.

 

They most likely first met in 1914 when Sanger gave a lecture to members of the Heterodoxy club, a secretive feminist collective in Greenwich Village; Dennett was part of the crowd.

 

Sanger was frustrated and disappointed with most of the women she met that day–she criticized them as being obliviously privileged, and not engaging with issues that affected the working class–but Dennett was an exception. She and Sanger had lunch together and discovered there was much common ground between their values and ambitions. 

 

Later on, the differences between their personalities and their methods made it impossible for them to keep working together.

 

Dennett had a somewhat rigid idea of how activism ought to be done: she opposed breaking law to drum up publicity and test cases in the courts, for example.

 

Sanger, meanwhile, thought Dennett was a bourgeois rule-follower. It stung her that Dennett made headway in trying to change the federal law in the years she lobbied in Washington, though otherwise Sanger, who was much better funded and had great natural charisma, occupied the predominant position in the birth control movement.

 

Both Dennett and Sanger launched very ambitious, very flawed campaigns. They took detours into the eugenics movement, presented birth control as a remedy for Depression-era poverty, and tried to bend pop-culture trends to muster momentum for the cause.   

 

Today their legacies can be felt not only in current efforts to legislate reproductive rights, both in the courts and in Congress, but also in how we talk about fertility control. Particularly with Dennett, I see her legacy in current arguments for reproductive freedom as a prerequisite for women to have full and equal citizenship. 

 

Q: What are you working on now? 

 

A: My next project is still very much in the playing-with-ideas phase. As it develops, I’m doing some freelance editorial work. I used to be a full-time editor, and I loved it; it’s the kind of job that sparks ideas all the time, while also being rigorous and taking you into subject areas you might never have explored unbidden. 

 

Being an editor is what first made me curious about whether I could write, and now, as an author, having gone through the editorial process has given me a new respect for the craft that goes into editing. It’s such a privilege to be trusted with someone’s manuscript.  

 

Q: Anything else we should know? 

 

A: I love hearing from readers, and I hope anyone with interest in the book will come say hi at an event! My website is stephaniegorton.com.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb