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From Teacher to Blogger to Author

In this story, Jessica Kim — the author of Stand Up, Yumi Chung! and Make a Move, Sunny Park! — shares her writing journey and how she overcame her fears. Read on for her perspective on topics on things like growing up, switching careers, themes in her books, and more!

I was born in an army base near Monterey, CA, as the daughter of South Korean immigrants who moved to the U.S. in the 1970s. My father was in the military, but passed away when I was in kindergarten. Growing up in the Inland Empire, my two sisters and I were typical ’80s and ’90s latchkey kids while my mom was working. My mom raised us with the help of my grandmother, who moved from Korea, and it was great to have some access to my heritage through food, stories, and her presence.

When I was young, I didn’t read an especially large amount. I didn’t really see myself in a lot of stories; there were basically none about Korean American girls or their grandmas. I also wasn’t a big writer, to be honest. Instead, I was always riding my bike, on roller skates, watching TV, or hanging out with my sisters. But I always loved writing, looking back. While completing school writing assignments, reporting for my school newspaper, and interning as a journalist at my local paper, I really enjoyed being creative. All the awards that I had won were writing-related, but at the time, it didn’t stand out to me because I was involved in so many other interests.


In college, I got hooked on teaching when I did my work study as a teacher’s aide in an elementary school bilingual immersion program. The teacher was so amazing and creative — I wanted to be just like her. So when I graduated, I became a teacher for 10 years and taught third and fifth grades. I loved talking to them and giving writing workshops. Younger kids are so fun and so passionate about everything they do. I also joined this program called Teach For America, which places teachers in low-income, under-resourced schools. I really thought I would teach until my retirement.

But due to my husband’s career, we had to move from LA to New York, where I decided to stay home and take care of our baby. It was super boring. I'd always been a busy, working person, so it was a huge jump when I had to just sit still for three whole hours while my kid was napping. During my unstructured time, I tried a bunch of different activities like cooking, and I experienced so many interesting things living in New York (like getting epically lost and going on the subway), but I was really homesick.


When I called my mom and sisters, I had to repeat the same phone conversation with each person. It was tedious to keep people updated, so I started blogging about my day for everyone to get caught up on my story. It was the first time I wrote for fun in my adulthood, and it was so fun that I continued for years. I just really loved finding connection with people because, to my surprise, like my readership was growing beyond my family. Readers would tell me that they related to my posts, which were an expression of my most honest and candid feelings. It was just so powerful to me that my words on a computer screen could touch someone.


Later, we moved back to LA, but things took a weird turn, so we ended up in San Diego. Since I wasn’t able to work at the school district back in LA, I could then ask myself, “Do I really want to go back to teaching?” Many people reading my blog asked, “Have you ever thought about writing a book?” but I had always thought, “I’m a teacher; I don’t know how to write a book. What does that even look like?” There was this thing in my brain blocking me from this fantasy: growing up, I heard that I had to be a lawyer, a doctor, have a stable life, and have a “real job,” which being an author was not. Later, I saw that UCSD had extension classes for things like publishing children’s books. At that point, I finally told myself to try it out. I had already settled down with a stable life, so what is there to be afraid of? It’s not something to make a living; it is literally just a passion thing. And so I sat down with my husband, and I was so nervous to tell him that I wanted to become a writer. He just told me that it wasn’t a big deal. But it was to me because I had to say it out loud. That means you are putting your dream out there, and somebody could smash it. That means you could be rejected, and it won’t come true. But if you keep it to yourself and don’t say it out loud, it’s not real. The only thing holding me back was my fear.


I decided to take the UCSD classes and joined a writing community. Then, I spent a year and a half on my first book, and it never sold. After that, I had a really hard time as I invested so much and it was so scary for me to put myself out there. I sent out around 50 query letters, and they were all rejected. Feeling discouraged, I took a little break.


Around that time, Ali Wong was getting big with her new Netflix special. Everyone was talking about this little, crassest, funniest, Asian woman. But I thought, “Who is this woman? Are her parents okay with her being a comedian?” I realized that I had never read a story about an Asian girl with a story like hers. The gears started turning in my head: I wanted to tell the story of that Asian girl, who wanted to do something creative, but was afraid. It was very much like a veiled version of my own life and how I felt scared to do something that had no guarantees. I started working on it, and eight months later, a manuscript came out and got sold right away. With that success, I decided to continue with my second book that came out a few years later, and I am now working on my third.



We also asked Ms. Kim another question. Here is her answer (edited for length/clarity):


  1. What drew you to writing about Asian Americans, what other topics do you gravitate towards in your writing, and what messages do you hope that your readers take away from them?

There isn’t an umbrella of themes I gravitate towards. The stories I write are ones that I deeply connect with and feel like I have to write about. My first book had the huge theme of being a child of immigrants. The parents don't understand Yumi, because they're from a different culture, and there's this clash that happens. And that's how I grew up.

However, the second book is a friendship book and people-pleasing, not really about with racial or ethnic identity. I actually changed the story from the first draft to the second draft. The protagonist went from the child of an immigrant to a third generation Asian American. She’s much more Americanized and so I feel that would be a better fit for this next story, because that's not a real essential theme of this book. That was really hard for me to do because my first book did so well, with some people saying that they understand so much more about Korean culture. For the longest time, I kept trying to tweak the book to give them more of what they want. It took me three years to write this book, compared to my first one, which was only eight months, because I was pandering so much to what I thought people wanted. When I had a long call with my literary agent she told me to just write the book, and it’ll still be fine if it doesn't have a Korean storyline. So I finally let that go, and the story just took shape after that. I think it's a pressure that people of color have. When other people perceive you as Korean first. Then you feel like all your stories have to lead that way. And so I am still learning how to just think of myself as a storyteller first. And of course, my identity is always going to be part of every book I write, but it's okay for it not to be the only thing.

For my third book I'm writing, it’s about grief and these twins who are grappling with the loss of their father. It’s about saying goodbye and understanding that the other person is going through something the same thing but in their own way. All of my books come from places that are extremely authentic and true to me.


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