922. R.O. Kwon

[Music] the way I've been explaining or if when people ask for a on line a oneline summary of the book I've been saying that exhibit explores what you'd risk to pursue your core desires what you might give up for what you for what you want the most um and there was a first question that that fascinated me and that question was was why is it that I feel so strongly pushed um by the world World by the Ze guys certainly by my family to want certain things and pretty much a strongly push to not want other things and the things that I feel especially push to want include being a daughter of a mother of a sister of um a Community member of a friend of um and the things I feel pressured not to want or to at least hide my desire for are include um anything for my body you know sex food certainly ambition certainly artistic ambition um even just a day if I just want a day alone that feels like something that that sort of has to be def defended or perhaps hidden and and I became fascinated by that because on the one hand it's really important to me to be an active to be a very active Community member um my friends are of great importance to me as my family but but what is so what is so what is so dangerous about me wanting for myself um and then so that was really I'd say the the first Spark okay and then you went out to the ballet and what was it about ballet that spoke to you so it was my first time attending the ballet as an adult um and that was back in oh God what is time that was back in like 2014 um and it was as I was watching I I had what amounted to an ecstatic experience um the the dancers on stage somehow it felt as though their bodies cellto cell were talking with my body cellto cell um wait wait but what does that mean their bodies were talking to your body you felt it internally I felt it internally and it bypassed my reasoning intellectualizing brain so it felt as though it felt as though my body was almost mirroring what was happening on the stage responding to it um and I was I was wrapped and the ballet itself was by Lexi RM monsky called the shastovich um Trilogy so gorgeous anyone who can see it I'd recommend it um but I just the the yeah and then I and and I was fascinated and puzzled by the experience and I've had this experience with with visual art for sure um The Experience where you're just where you're where when is wrapped and and and and and not exactly sure or what is going on you know I think as a writer as a reader I'm used to a certain kind of artistic experience um and less familiar with with what happened when I watched ballet and then from then on I just I got obsessed you know like I I watched so much ballet I um read Soo much about ballet in the course of in the course of researching this book um I ended up taking ballet and choreography classes I interviewed ballet ballerinas and dancers and and yeah wow I didn't I that's like a very high level of commitment to actually take ballet talk to ballerinas you obviously are going to ballet like what did you learn from those experiences that found its way into the novel oh there was so much um I will say I have to say um the ballet classes were extremely Elementary you know because most U most people who dance ballet they they start at like four years old um it's it starts so early it's such a part of your body um and actually the first the first draft of this book I had um I had the I I I tried to tell the ball I tell I tried to tell the novel from the ballerina's point of view um and I realized actually that at least for me um I'm a very whenever I'm stuck on a scene or not sure what to do I try very hard to forcibly eject myself out of my body into a character's body and I ask myself what am I now feeling you know just how is my like what am I thirsty are my jeans uncomfortable just like the basics of what my body is up to and I found that I couldn't quite do that to the extent I wanted with a ballerina um and I think that part part of that was because a ballerina especially a ballerina who's dancing at the level that Lydia um my my novel Central ballerina is dancing she her whole body is shaped by ballet in a way that in a way that I could not quite quite inhabit and so and so that was um that was fascinating oh um the choreography class I took uh I was there and I essentially just went as a as a watcher because you know i' I've never CH choreographed a dance before and something that fascinated me about that was um as the other people so you know the teacher will give them an assignment like whatever like come up with a five minute sequence of moves for a dance um and people you know if it were a group of writers everyone would go to would go to the table get out their pens or laptops and start like writing or typing like it would be very predictable the the choreographers they um they were thinking with their bodies and so they and so they they'd flop on the ground they' went into splits they'd stand up they'd start moving and and yeah it was it was just like a such a different way of thinking than what I than what I'm used to seeing and knowing yeah I mean I remember the last time we spoke I think at the end of the conversation as I usually do I asked you what you were working on and you talked about this book and like all authors tend to be when it comes to that kind of question you were a little bit cryptic you're like it's about a photographer and a dancer I think is what you told me something like that you know and as I listen to you it occurs to me how like diametrically opposite like ballet as an art form is from writing like this very cerebral static like inert inward uh quiet discipline that writing tends to be versus the embodied incredibly physically demanding work of ballet it's punishing where you know B you know ballerinas are notoriously tough and often often dealing with injuries and you know even dancing through injuries that would you know I think sideline a a lesser person but that was part of the Allure for you I imagine is somebody who is a writer and is inward looking at these people who are so physical and so embodied in their work that's a great question I'm not sure that on the one hand yes it fascinates me um and you know um and there and yeah this this is in the novel but there's a point when when Lydia mentions um that while she was dancing she broke a toe um and she just keeps dancing because that's what you do in ballet you you just keep dancing if if you're at all capable of continuing to dance you keep dancing um and um and there's a there's she's dancing apart that involves a lot of um jumping up and down on that foot that injured foot and she just keeps doing it with her broken foot um I mean not a broken foot her broken toe um and that's um you know and that was inspired by uh a real story um that this is just this is standard for for ball for people who dance ballet um I think I'm fascinated by I'm certainly fascinated by the physicality of it I'm also there are other ways in which it's so different from writing so in ballet especially in Classical Ballet um one doesn't talk back one doesn't one doesn't question what you're told it's an it's an extremely disciplined art um that is traditionally very topped down um and so if a if a teacher says um if the class if if in a class um somebody tells you to do something you do it like you you don't there's no there's very little space for disagreement for instance um and and so in that way it's it's so different from writing right um with writing a novel certainly where it's it's kind of everything is up to you and anything that goes wrong is entirely your fault really and and yeah but you have like a yeah you have like an authorial authority that is maybe lacking for the ballerina who has to kind of take take orders essentially yeah and of course you know there's so much then there's so much space inside of that discipline inside um inside that inside those restrictions for how you're how you yourself as a individual are going to dance um so so I don't want to so it's not that they're um it's not that yeah but um the other thing is it's not unusual it's not at all unusual ual for ballerinas to have to retire when they're in their 20s um 30s definitely um people who are still dancing ballet past 40 that's that's that's quite rare because of how hard it is on your body and um and that's something I I I was thinking a lot about too Lydia the the the ballerina in exhibit you know she's she's a extremely accomplished ballerina she's a principal um which is the highest level she can reach and um and and she she knows how little time she has she's 25 in the book and she knows that she just doesn't have that much more time um before before she might have to she might have to stop and that's and that's a that's just a condition of ballet which of course isn't quite as true for for writers who in theory you know um baring barring some barring an accident that affects your brain in some way essentially um or an or an illness we can keep writing until we drop dead and and yeah that's one of yeah one of one of the advantages one of the few advantages of being a writer you can keep going I but I do feel like I mean I'm approaching 50 I'm like I don't feel like I've even begun to scratch the surface I have a lot of work left to do that's how I feel about it I think a lot of people feel that way and like it's nice that the possibility exists it would be sad I think especially if you really love it yeah to to have such a low ceiling on your ability to do this thing that you love you know it's over when you're 28 or whatever right and so and so there's and so the this the ferocity of the love that people have for ballet who who decide to make it their lives um is is is endlessly fascinating to me because yeah you know that like a bad injury could take you out um you're living on a much shorter time schedule than than people who don't have to retire who don't most likely have to retire by the time they're 40 for instance um and and yeah because with plenty of writers write until right until the day they drop dead um and I certainly hope that that's what I'm going to be able to do knock on wood yeah well before we get any further let's give listeners the kind of broad setup of this novel we've talked a lot about lyia the ballerina but this is very much a a relationship novel multiple relationships principle among them is the relationship between jinhan who is a photographer married to a man named Phillip and then enter Lydia this ballerina the kind of Novel opens with their meeting JY and Lydia meet at a party in Marin you just talk about the setup of this book and the relationships at the heart of it sure that's a great question um so when the novel starts JY who's a photographer um has been married to her husband for a little while Phillip um they've been together since College um he's essentially her first boyfriend her first partner um and they're at a Crossroads because um they had agreed from the very start that they weren't going to have children and then and that neither was interested and Philip wakes up one day um and he's he wakes up and he realizes oh God I do want children um and so and jyn quite ferociously um is certain that she doesn't want children so this is one of those um this is a this is one of those things where it's it's really hard to genuinely compromise um you know there's there's no such thing as half a child and one child is not a compromise by any means and so um and so now they now they now they don't know what to do they love each other very much um and they're not sure what to do next and then it's at this juncture that they go to this party and JY meets Lydia Jung um this very accomplished uh star ballerina and they stay up at the party all night talking um and part of what draws jyn and Lydia to each other so they're both artists um they're both in a in a state of some creative frustration so jyn hasn't been able to take a photo she had a first exhibition that um that was quite prominent um she uh and then after that for a variety of reasons she hasn't been able to take a photo she can even bear to keep around for a solid year which is a long time Lydia is seriously injured um and for the first time in her life Can't Dance Can't Dance the way she wants to and is recuperating um and is is and is and is just waiting to get back to get back to the who she who she is and wants to be um and so they're both at this sort of in this lull with their work and so and part of what draws them to each other is um perhaps the first thing that really pulls them together is the strength of their ambition and their specifically the ambition for their art and they talk about it with each other they're open with each other that night in a way that um that can be hard for that that in a way that can be hard for people to to be open I think and I've I've thought a lot about the ways in which you know um so many of my friends so many you know as as I'm sure is true of you so many of my writer and artist friends are are so ambitious um definitely including women and I've talked about this a lot with um with close women artist friends um I'm ambitious for my work you know in terms of what I wanted to be able to do with it in terms of just like what I'm capable of doing on the page um and it still feels so dangerous to say that to say I mean I've been I've been saying it I've just been saying it but um but it feels dangerous to say I'm an ambitious woman you know it feels like code for I mean it's not even code if friend and I were joking because their friend said isn't that code for unlikable women and I said is it even a code it just it already carries so many um negative connotations and but jyn and Lydia are honest with each other about the breath strength and depth of their ambition and then from then on um they and they also realized that night um that they have some overlap in terms of what they're interested um what their bodies are interested in doing uh sexually and so um and then from then on they become friends and then I don't think I'm giving anything away if I say and then they become more than friends and then they become more than friends yeah sex is very much at the heart of this novel sexual taboos are at the heart of this Kink um I mean I think you've talked in previous interviews that I've read about how you were kind of giring yourself as you prepared for the publication of this novel for people to just automatically assume that this is autofiction like thinly veiled and I get that you know like you have I think sometimes people readers make this mistake where they conflate the author with his or her characters in a really reflexive way and then the author will have to be like no this is a novel I'm working creatively here but I also know from my experience as a writer that sometimes writers will say that they'll say no this is a novel when in fact it's actually autofiction but they're just kind of trying to like create some distance uh can you just talk about the creative courage that it took you to write this book and to write into this subject [Music] matter with his I mean I don't know if you were Fearless about it maybe that's not the right word right there was probably some fear but you pushed through the fear is that the way that that you would probably characterize it oh that's such a beautiful question thank you um Fearless is definitely not the right there there was a very generous review that just published in that in the San Francis San Francisco Chronicle I live in San Francisco um and the writer um the wonderful Hannah Bay um used the word fearless and and I saw that and I was like definitely not fear Courageous Courageous because courage is when you are afraid but you act in spite of the fear well thank you for saying that um you know the experience of writing this book came with what were often daily um sometimes hours long panic attacks and anxiety attacks um it it it hasn't stopped you know like even yesterday I was in the depths of what was I don't even know like a five hour anxiety attack and I couldn't bring it down um and and part of it for me I've realized is that so I think I have three different um three sort of different heaps piled on my body on my brain on my on my heart um and those are that I'm I'm a Korean woman um I'm ex Catholic and I'm ex Evangelical and I was so Christian for a while that when I was a kid my my life goal was to be a pastor or or or like a recluse in a cave I just wanted to serve the Lord um and I I I remember this from the last time we last time we spoke we talked about this at length like you you were like a super believer and then you lost your faith yes yes yes and you know it was it was still and still is the pivotal loss of my life like it divides my life into a before and after um and and I should interrupt I'm sorry but I want to make sure to point out that your protagonist JY the photographer has a similar experience a similar loss of faith that she is dealing with in her life yes yes very much so um and so and and what I realize is that you know Korean women aren't aren't supposed to talk about sex Korean women are really not supposed to give any indication in public that we've ever had sex let alone wanted sex um Catholics famously um I was raised cath I was raised Catholic just saying that yeah you know all about it um yeah being ex Catholic famously comes with its um its own burden of of Shame and guilt around around physical desires um being being Evangel ex Evangelical that also comes with it it its own um its own its own sort of like fun uh fun heap of guilt and shame um and what I think I realized is that I'm quite I think people think that because of um this book that I worked on for nine years um and I because I I also coedited an anthology called Kink with my friend G Greenwell I think people I have gotten the sense that people imagine that I must be just like extremely liberated and like that I've like kicked off shame and it isn't true at all you know um and I think what I've realized is that I am quite possibly never going to get out from underneath this triple helping of of um shame and guilt um however um one doesn't have to be liberated to do liberated and liberating things um one doesn't have to be free to do things that that reach toward Freedom um and and so and I think I believe with all my heart that if I'm if I'm afraid to write something down um if something I'm considering writing down kicks off another panic attack um there's probably something there that's really interesting to me um there's probably something there that I want to see written down um and I know this because in some of my loneliest moments um and you know there have been times in my life when I when I've thought I'm I could be a decent candidate for being the loneliest person in the world which um I knew I wasn't I knew I didn't get that Crown but I thought I could at least you know like compete for the crown and and so and so I know that in those times books other people's books and art um have provided fellow genuinely life-saving Fellowship um and when I think about why I want to write um I think that that's that's one of that's one of the main things for me is is I want to give that Fellowship that kinship back to people um because it can be so amazing to read something to read a passage or a page and to realize oh my God someone else has had this thought someone else has had has wanted something that I thought I was alone on this Earth and wanting um and yeah I just I really wanted to do that with this book so I just kept almost trusting I I kept trusting in the fear as as a as a guidepost it was pointing me toward what I wanted to do next well I think this is laudible that you wrote into this fear and that you push through because there's an urgency and a Vitality to books written by people For Whom the project is deeply personal and I I think it would be useful for listeners who have not had a chance to read to talk a little bit about these like private desires uh of jyn in particular the photographer um like can you just give an overview of what she is discovering about herself as she falls into this relationship with Lydia yeah for sure thank you for saying that Brad that um I'm I'm like G to I'm I'm I'm trying not to tear up here this is the Barb it's the Barbara Walter's moment of the interview where you have to take a break and blow your nose well thank you so much for saying that um so JY is um you know JY is a is a Korean woman artist um she's queer and she's kinky um she's open about being queer she has been for a while she is profoundly not open about about the Kink um and just as a quick aside um I'll say that because people aren't always are always sure what it is um One Way Kink can be defined is simply as any act or practice that steps outside of whatever one's culture um tells you that that sex is supposed to be and so it's a shifting ter term that's almost that's defined more by what it's not than by what it is um and by some measures there you know it's there's so many studies on this kind of thing but so one um quite comprehensive study that one of those studies that looked at all kinds of other studies and then and then pulled together the information um that study said that perhaps 40 to 70% of people um are interested in kink in one way or another um and so it's not a fringe thing but it is but it's treated like a fringe thing um and um well so there's the part it is true that that so jyn is um having trouble jyn has trouble talking about the Kink um including to including to her husband Phillip and let alone anyone else um in part because again she's a Korean woman um and really I cannot overstate the extent to which um to which Korean women we're we're just not supposed to be sexual beings not in public certainly in any way shap re form um and then there's um you know Ging shares my background of being ex religious and ex ex fervidly religious um there's also the fact that so part of what a large part of what led to um kept spurwing panic attacks for me and anxiety attacks was that um so I've written um quite a bit of non-fiction that has to do with gender race queerness Etc um including after the 20 Atlanta spa shootings um when women were killed um by a man who said that who said that he did it because because they were quote unquote Temptations um he explained that his explanation was that he had a sex addiction which is um not considered in which which psychiatric literature does not consider to be a real thing um wait let me ask you this I'm trying to recall this shoot I mean it's terrible but I would have to search my brain because there's been so damn many of them is of massacr and shootings on a yeah but this was the the this was the spa shooting in Atlanta and these were Asian women were they not these were Asian women these were Asian women and the um and the shooter was white and he told he told the media like the next day that he had he had a sex addiction um and people you know people just blly repeated this um until people started pushing back and saying actually sex addictions aren't real um they're not recog ized by medicine in any way as being as being a real thing um but so I wrote about that um I wrote or I wrote about the shootings a few days after um after they happened um and I then ended up because of that going on the radio to talk about um some of this and as a result I heard from um thousands of people including very much including and and predominantly women um about their own experiences of gendered race of gendered racism um and you know it it it it was and is um I felt and feel so honored to to to be able to to be trusted with such with such pain um it's also true that as I was writing this book I became increasingly terrified um and I still am that the ways in which um sexuality is explored an exhibit um the book can be misinterpreted let's see jy's desires can be can be misinterpreted as aligning almost exactly with some of the most harmful um and most prevalent stereotypes about people who look like me which is that we're docel that we're um that we can be pushed around that we're um that we're that we're here to serve um and it's c I I want to interrupt just so people listening are oriented like when you talk about the ways in which stereotypes about Asian women might be projected onto jyn based on her desires we should maybe specify that in terms of her her personal Kink she is I guess what you call submissive she likes to be hit in during sex is that right yeah she's she's a submissive um she submissive and she's um and she's a masochist so she's um so yes exactly um and then so so I just I just what the fear came down to I realized and um jyn has a spere too with with the work that she's that she starts being interested in making um is I you know I I can't say this without tearing up I I keep trying um you can see see that it's still like a very present fear for me the fear is that I by making and you know it's just a novel but but it is but a novel holds a world um the fear is that I will get more of us killed that I'll get more of us harmed by adding to The Stereotype and um this always happens I I can't talk about it without and um and yeah that's just and and so jyn shares this fear as well um and that's part of and that's part of why she can't talk about it because she she doesn't want especially at first um that changes but she wishes she she didn't want as she does and one of the obsessions of the book is is the strength of desire you know um the strength of and that includes multiple kinds of desire there's ambition there's um there's a sexual desire for sure um but other kinds of Desire like Philip's desire for a child um JY jy's desire to to never have a child um I am fascinated by and as as is a book the extent to which desire can't be argued away um it can't be like it we like I mean at least in my experience of desire desire is just there and I have to work with it it won't I can't argue it I can't argue it out of my body I can't kill it it's just um and so and so yeah it also occurs to me how much desire can make us miserable like the things we want like I always say like the best definition of happiness that I've ever heard is to be free from wanting like what's it what is true happiness is to be free from wanting and yet human beings we want stuff all the time like constantly and it drives us crazy it we do I feel I feel as though at every given moment my life I seee with desire yeah and then you get it and then it's like and that's supposed to State you right that's supposed to like if you fulfill your desire it's supposed to make you happy and yet you fulfill your desire and then you become anxious about losing it once you have it which makes you miserable it's it's like it you know it's like this cycle of constant it basically just leads to constant dissatisfaction somehow I've got to relinquish the wanting on the one hand um I know that you know the I know that there you know of course there are religions where um that say that the sensation of Desire is is is is is tied to Enlightenment um and I think a lot about how um so for instance in my dear friend ingred Ras contas his Memoir um the man who could move clouds which if anyone hasn't read it I'd so recommend it's it's a it's an Incredible Book um P Sur prise finalist pet surprise finalist exactly um and her mother is um is a kuranda um a Healer who can um who and and who has um well her ing's whole family has a has a tradition of people being kuros and kuras um and something ing's mother says to her in the course of the book um that I think about a lot is that is that what the ghosts miss the most is wanting the ghosts Miss Desire um the ghosts miss their hunger and I just feel as though wanting and wanting and wanting is such is so inext inextricably tied to my experience of living at least um that in some ways i' I I I um I find some I find some Delight in that in in the ferocity of desire and in how how just um how impossible it seems to be for at least me to to to relax at hold I think everybody's that way right I mean it's like it's like on the one hand it's like to be free from wanting is this ideal where you would imagine it would lead to some sort of Peace but then like you say maybe it's the ghosts it's the the very thing that the ghosts miss the most I mean uh maybe it's like not wanting things to be other than they are so if you I don't know it's a conundrum let's just leave it at that right it's a it's a human conundrum and I think it affects us all in various ways and for JY uh you know she has these desires uh for Lydia she has these like sexual desires within the context of their relationship that are taboo and that have so many have so many different associations for her and there's something revelatory about it there's something a little bit risky when you think about as you said being a Korean woman coming from a religious background having certain expectations placed upon you in both contexts and kind of rebelling against that uh I know that you I want to say you either gave a speech or wrote an essay about not like kind of not wanting your parents to read this book um can you talk about that because I think this is something that a lot of writers and artists face where the art that we make might not be the art that say our parents or our pastor would want us to make uh like how have you dealt with the weight of that and navigated the relationships that you know might be affected by the art so I should probably say here that um you know I'm I'm queer um and I and I'm open about it I've written about it I've talked in interviews about it um being queer for um a whole lot of both Mainland and diaspora Koreans um is still considered an illness and and some sort it's considered a strange illness that seems to affect other people but does not affect Koreans and so and um and when I um when I so I think in 2018 is when I started talking in public about banquer um and you know I my parents um I'm very close to them and um my mother is Ador L um she's on Instagram and she Hearts every sing not only Hearts every single post I put up but throws in a bunch of emo she's very fluent in emoji she throws in a bunch of emojis um my father just like for kicks will Google me just to see like what I've been what like what interviews or Publications might might might be out um and so they're very supportive um which I which I'm which I'm so grateful for um for five years anything I anytime I post said said anything about being queer those would be the posts that my mother would just Skip and and I and we never talked about it and honestly that was completely fine to me um sort of a benign silence is is is is was completely fine to me um they're very religious they're very Catholic um they're Korean immigrants you know that there I I just thought there's only so much that they can do on this front and that's totally fine um but then in 2023 my novel my first novel The incendiary is published in Korea um and I was was very fortunate in that my publisher mji um we we had a lot of press um and so I was my father was so proud you know um there he was he was emailing like his um High School alumni College alumni church friends telling them all about how the books now out in Korean um they listened and they listened to and read every single interview um along with that Pride it was also true that the first thing that they said to me after listening to and and reading interviews um was that they proposed I stop talking about bqu um and they and they said that it was because other El other people Elders had expressed grave concern um and they and they framed it in the um they Ed the argument that people often use that it's not safe um and it's true that in Korea um being queer I mean of course like being queer here is also can also be very fraught in Korea um there are no legal protections um at the annual Soul Pride Parade there's a tradition of Christian protesters trying to die by suicide by flinging themselves in front of floats um to stop the floats to stop the parade to die for the Lord um I'm I'm just laughing because it um this is just so like typical of Kore Kore I just feel as though like Koreans are just the deeply not chill people as as a we just Tak something thing and we were like like hey guys it's a parade relax and and so um you know so they weren't they weren't being they weren't wrong my parents that that I was running a risk by by talking about quess in every which I did in every single interview I gave um but that said that's part of why I did it right um because and I mean I me you I don't live in Korea I live in San Francisco For Heaven's Sake um and uh and and and um you know it was it [Music] was but that the the Korean tra the Korean attitude and I don't want to speak for everybody it's changing thank goodness um but it's changing not as quickly as it should but it is changing um but the overall Korean attitude toward queerness is something that that I've had on my mind very much while while writing this book um recently I was trying to think about how many queer Korean writers I know who are out um and to my surprise because I hadn't actually thought like I hadn't like made a list before and including a diasporic and Mainland Koreans there were so few that I could think of um at first I I at first I struggled to even get to 10 and then I got past 10 but it it took it took thinking I was actually like texting friends and saying like who who else who else do we know of um and so and so there's um to be queer and Korean is is is is um is can be complicated I mean you know again complicated complicated for so many people um there's such a thing as social death is what it's called um and so social death is what happens is if you come out as being queer and if your family um disapproves if the if the people around you disapprove um everyone just stops talking to you um you stop existing to to the people around you and so and so that's that's terrifying that's a that's a that's that's a terrifying thing to contemplate um and yeah so that and yet and yet it hasn't stopped you well um on the corus aspect you know I um again I live in San Francisco you know like my I most of my friends are writers and editors and artists um I know so many people that um especially in San Francisco that um when I meet a new person here I don't I I I default tend to assume that the new person is probably queer it's it's almost as though people are queer until Pro until proven otherwise to me like if someone just comes out and says straight up like I am a heterosexual person they was like oh okay all right that's a straight person but um but you know so I I kind of felt as though um because I started talking in public about being quer um in late 2018 so that was some months after the incendar is published um and I thought you know there are so few of us who are out for um for any number of reasons um and and I live in TSO again um and my parents are very religious however they were definitely not going to disown me um so that meant I that meanta means I have a lot of safe safety around this that a lot of people don't so I thought I really and I don't mean this this isn't this doesn't apply to anyone else is always a personal decision but for me personally I thought like well I can talk about being queer in public um it it it it's relatively quite safe for me and so I I want to and I should then yeah I think that's a really Noble thing to do and I'm imagining you probably hear from people who might not be living out in the open but who find comfort in your living openly and and kind of speaking your truth is that the case do you hear from people I I do hear a lot from people um who especially from people who so I'm um I'm I I go by I use both terms um I don't I I like both terms but I'm bisexual pansexual um and I go I use both terms because um I think pensexual might be this slightly more accurate in that gender is irrelevant to me in terms of what in terms of Attraction um whereas to be bisexual to be attracted to two or more genders but I I also use bisexual because it's the more battle term I think um they're you know the one of the standing myths about bisexual people is that we just don't don't exist so right right it's always like oh you're gay you just don't realize it yet or you won't admit it just like well no some of us are bisexual um leave us alone um but but and um I'm married to a man I'm married to a CIS man um and I think because that was partly why I didn't talk about it for a while because there can be a um it's for for bisexual panexual people who are in heterosexual appearing Partnerships um there can be a pressure to not talk about it because you because you're because of because it doesn't look as though you're you're queer um but then you know I started talking about it and I hear so much from other queer people who are in heterosexual appearing relationships um who will just say I mean people people people said me messages a lot um so many friends at parties at dinner parties have have just said as an aside um oh by the way I'm queer too I just don't talk about it because um because it it looks as though I'm heterosexual yeah that's I mean that is a unique like iteration of it right where you are in this like seemingly heteronormative presenting relationship and yet you're queer and so what would be the impetus to speak about it I guess you're a public facing person as an artist but for somebody who isn't I can imagine how they could be like yeah it's more trouble than it's worth or I'm just going to keep it to myself and yet to keep it to yourself can be its own kind of Burden you know to not be able to just be transparent about who you are and to speak openly can become problematic yeah and such and so much loneliness can come with that you know um and having to hide um a part of yourself that's core to who you are there's so much loneliness that can come with that um oh something I think a lot about is um I think when people when people are pressured to um to hide or kill core desires um and definitely to to to suppress or kill core desires um that can be a first violence from which other kinds of violence can arise you know um and an example I'll give is just like the the cliche figure of somebody who is um who is extremely anti-queer and you find out that they that they've been a closeted queer person um all along the way um and and yeah so so I'm you know I think with with with exhibit um I the characters the central characters are trying very hard um um and with varying degrees of of um being of achieving what they what they hope to do are trying very hard to move out of hiding to move toward openness well let's speak about infuriation because we've spoke about panic attacks and fear and we've talked about pushing through the fear and I think there is a detectable and righteous anger in you and in this work it's like a Defiance is that an accurate assessment I mean do you feel that and do you recognize that within yourself as somebody who you know kind of grew up within these confining like religious and social and cultural structures and you've kind of managed to break out or you're trying to break out in your art and in your life is is anger a fuel is it a part of the equation for you um you know I've I've joked that um I've joked and it's not quite a joke that when there's nothing else left to fuel me um you know in times of great sorrow um in times of great uh dejection um when there's nothing left there is almost spite is the most Dependable fuel you know um I thought about that during the P during the early part of the pandemic when um when you know there were times when things were so grim and I thought um I absolutely cannot get this virus and die because I must outlive um the the evil evil [ __ ] in charge I must live long enough to see them die hey it's good to have goals it's good to have goals goals are good um no but I you know I'm always grateful to um in some ways I'm always grateful to I I have found that in times of great sorrow that in times of great um Melancholy that when anger kicks in um I'm grateful to it because it's energy um it lets me do something then um anger seems like something that I can um that I can work with whereas sorrow kind of like clo shuts me down closes me inside um and yeah I guess there is also some there is also some anger about um you know with with with the with the terrible anxiety I felt about this book and still feel um and again you know there and then I I so often try to mock the anxiety away but that doesn't seem to work um and I just because it's it's a book right like I it's a novel I made it up nobody made me do this like nobody forced me to write a book about this I could have written about whatever I wanted and instead I chose to write about things that um have filled me with um alarm on a near daily basis um and um it is true that sometimes I'll think but this is isn't fair um why do I have to why do I have to be so afraid about writing a book that has to do with with wom's desire like what and um and yeah so I'd say yes yeah it's like it's like a yo-yoing it's like a yo-yoing between like fear and Defiance and like the Defiance has won out right the book is in print you decided not to let fear like rule the day right right well I guess you know um that every almost every day that I wrote this book um I told myself often out loud that it was okay because I could write things down because I wasn't going to let anyone read it um and um and I knew it was a I knew it was a lie you know um for one thing at some point I had sold a book to Riverhead so um to my editor so there were you know at some point I was going to have to send them something um but I'm still kind of holding on to that lie and we're now what's the date five days from publication and so um the book has been shipped to bookstores so um so I'm aware that the LIE is about to completely fall to nothing um but I'm still holding on to it and I'm not sure what I'm going to do when um once the LIE is no longer once there's nothing of it left but yeah so let's talk a little bit about the writing itself uh I'm going to quote you to yourself if I may I read something I think where you say my ideal schedule involves going to sleep close to dawn like around 600 or 7 a.m. then waking up at around noon or so I have a somewhat metal as in like heavy metal morning routine I take half a caffeine pill and then I keep my laptop near my bed so I just roll over and grab it and wait for the caffeine to kick in I listen to music that I only ever listen to when I'm writing this is this is it you literally like R you roll over grab a caffeine pill in your laptop and you don't even get out of bed yes and you go to and you go to bed at dawn yeah so um so you know that's another way I listen to my body is um is is I'm really nocturnal um I can actually kind of feel my brain get a little like pickup speed When the Sun Goes Down um I feel much more at home yeah at night um I have read that it's quite possible that because you know there is a percentage of the population that is just definitely nocturnal um and it shortens Our Lives to try to adhere to the morning the morning schedule that um that the world sets for everybody um and um I've read that it's possible that some of us some of us evolve to be extremely nocturnal because we were needed to watch out for um for our communities at night so yeah so we kept the species going has been my I think there there's absolutely truth to it I have a friend who's that way my brother-in-law is that way it's very obvious that you're just wired up for this schedule you know in ways that I'm certainly not and I want to say that my friend did like a ancestry.com or 23 and me like did some sort of genetic test on himself and that there's actually a genetic indicator for this whoa not know that fascinating yeah I want to say I could be wrong but I want to say he told me he's like yeah it's very obvious that I'm you know no I've got the nocturnal genetic indicator or whatever so I don't know it's it's a totally real thing I think that it's also like you're inherently oppressed as a nocturnal person by the the mainstream schedule right like you say like if you're wired this way but you're forced to live a nine-to-five existence and your body is resistant to going to bed at 10:00 at night waking up at 6:00 in the morning and the whole thing seems upside down to you you probably don't get as good as sleep and that can affect your health yeah it's so true um I at this point usually if I if I have like a you know 9:00 a.m meeting and it has to be at 9:00 a. um I I often just approach it from the other side like I'll just stay up and then take the 9:00 a.m. meeting and then I'll go to sleep after that because that feels better to my body than than trying to drag myself out of bed at at 8 8:30 in the morning um and and yeah so um and the reason I go from the reason I do this whole caffeine pill grab my laptop don't get out of bed thing um is that I want I just want to get as fast as possible from my dreaming State into the writing into trying to write um and I find that that helps cut down meaningfully on the real fear that seems to come with with starting to write um every single day um just the the fear that the writing won't go well that that it won't that the that the words won't come that I'll spend that I'll spend that time just banging my head against the you know against the manuscript um and uh and even getting up to make coffee for instance and I love delicious coffee but even I was going to say I was going to say you're taking a pill like what's what whatever happened to coffee I love coffee but that requires getting up and making it and so that that that that widens the interval between dream state and writing State um and so I wait for coffee until later in the day after I've with any luck gotten some writing done um well how wait how long does a caffeine pill take to kick in it's pretty fast it um I haven't measured it honestly but it's easily it's pretty much the same as coffee you know it it's it hits you fast especially if you crush it up and snort it I hear I have not not yet tried that you're not there yet you're not there yet you're free basing caffeine pills in your bed in the morning you know and I I read too that you also have a writing Shaw like you wear you you drape yourself in a particular Shaw for the act of writing I do um and this is also influenced by my friend ingred roas contas who has guessed it on this program multiple times yes um so she she has um she's written in the New York Times about this she has a very um she has a she has writing rituals that include um she has a certain color ultramarine blue that she only ever wears when she's writing and so she's bought like these clothes that are in ultramarine blue but she'll only wear them in writing and when she's in and then she also has you know any number of other rituals that are only for the writing um I'm trying to I'm trying to I'm trying to picture Ultra Marine blue I guess it's like a Oceanic deep like sea blue like what is it uh I've actually never seen it on her um because it's her writing right writing I've never seen any of her um any of her writing writing clothes um and um and so I I um I adapted that um and I I only wear black um I only have black clothes just for me at some at some point I decided to cut down on um on the number of decisions I make in a given day and just wearing all black made freed up space to do other to think about other things for me um but in I adapted that to having a writing Shaw so there's a Shaw that I only ever wear if I'm writing fiction um and when I'm when that Shaw is on me or visible um I will not answer texts I definitely won't look at email absolutely won't look at social media or news um and what I found that and I have you know I have a I have a mug that's only for writing fiction I have certain lighting that's only for writing fiction um I have I have music that I only listen to when I'm writing fiction um like what what is what is the music that you listen to um the music varies wildly um I usually I usually Loop one or two songs at at for um at a time um and it varies wildly um sometimes it can be I'm I have a fondness for late renaissance music um religious music um sometimes it can be sometimes it could just be um a contemporary pop song that I'm interested in in the moment um Tracy Chapman's bascar has been a reliable writing song you know it's it's it's all over the place um and um but what I've found and ingred said this would be the case is um once these rituals are in place um very soon I lose the ability to or not the ability I lose the desire to to spoil that space that writing space um it starts feeling as though you're on Holy Ground and one doesn't want to defile on own Holy Ground um and so I used to use programs like um any number of computer programs to lock off the internet because I could not keep myself off of off off of the internet I wanted to know what was going on in the world um and when I have my rituals in place I just I lose the desire to even you know like go on go on Instagram and see what people are up to you know um it and so it's it's been it's been so helpful I can't I can't I can't um I can't say enough about how helpful the rituals have been it really does feel almost like a refuge um when I once once I have that in place I mean you know even though writing is is is is a process Frau with um any all kinds of emotions that are not always um enjoyable um I I know that I'm going to I'm I'm going to be thinking about the fiction and I do want to say because um I I count like I count lying on my back staring at the ceilings as writing time you know like I count stretching as writing time like all of that is writing to me but um this has helped so much actually that at some point um I realized and I can't believe it took me like years to figure this out but it used to be the case that when I was writing essays um that I had a uh um it was what I would usually do is I would start working at something like 10 p.m. and I would pour myself a glass of wine start slowly drinking it um I would then spend hours wandering around in the wilderness of the internet you reading think about something that had absolutely nothing to do with what I was supposed to be doing um I would end up reading just something awful like like I don't know I would end up reading about incels for hours um instead of working on my essay and getting myself into who Among Us hasn't spent hours reading about incels nothing nothing nothing relaxes me more nothing nothing relaxes me more than a nice glass of malback and a great essay on incels it's just how I it's how like to wind down exactly it was not relaxing and then roughly around somehow um my my body seems to know exactly how long drafting an essay will take so often around 5:00 a.m. is when I would actually get going on the essay um so then by that point I've been slowly sipping wine for seven hours um and then I would finish by by 10:00 a.m. maybe and then I'd you know usually I have somebody I have a friend or two read it before I um and then I redraft it before I send it to anyone else um to an editor and so then I would send it off to the friends I'd recruited to read the essay and then I would fling myself into bed at this point just drunk because you know I've been drinking for like for a solid 12 hours very slowly very slowly but it was like the most unhealthy uh essay writing habit I could imagine like it just felt like I was permanently in grad school um and then one day I realized I could just have an essay Shaw I could have a Shaw that's devoted I could have a mug that's devoted to essays I could have lighting that's devoted to essays music that's devoted to essays and that has dramatically changed my relationship to writing essays now I just I you know there's haven't read about incels in a while think it's just revolutionary you have a Shaw for every genre you know whatever you're doing but that you know it it just makes it just makes a basic sense to especially if you're having trouble concentrating to just sort of take like Dot all your eyes cross all your tees take care of your environment your physical self and make a ritual out of it and it seems to work I get why it would and on a semi-related note I have to ask you about powerlifting um I guess this isn't part of your writing practice but I'm imagining it does feed it I talked to so many writers on this show who have some relationship with physical activity that feeds or serves as a Counterpoint to the more inert static you know writing work but powerlifting uh I have not heard that many writer I don't think I've ever had a conversation with a writer on this show about powerlifting this is something you do regularly and it does it affect you creatively um so I love powerlifting and my friend um Tony Tula tumti is the one who recommended that I try it out so that's another writer writer powerlifter um he's been he's been on the show I don't think we talked about powerlifting maybe he's taken it up it's been it's been a minute it was several years ago so maybe he's taken it up since then or he didn't we just didn't you know talk about it since he wrote his his since he published his last book that he started getting into it um so what powerlifting offers is something that I otherwise can find only when the writing is going really really well which is um when I'm when I'm trying to deadlift something thing um I'm and you know I I every time I do it I try to work I try to get to a place where I'm lifting as much as I possibly can um and you know it's a little dangerous um not like you know it's not super dangerous but it it is dangerous you can if you do it badly if your form is off you can really hurt yourself um and so while I'm lifting something that um that I can barely lift my brain has to think about just that there's nothing there's nothing else I'm thinking about in that moment um and that feels analogous to when I'm writing um and the writing is going really well um and when I'm just deep inside a sentence and just trying to get it to be the most truthful version of itself that it can possibly be um I I'm it's not just that I'm not thinking about anything else like it feels very much as though the I'm gone like the ego dissolves um there's there's some sense in which I forget I have a body I'm just I'm just in the sentence and it's and it's and it is one of the most ecstatic things I know um is being able to enter that space and granted you know like it's not always available um sometimes like weeks can go by without getting to that space But but but but it but then but then it knock on wood um it so far has has come back um and so and so powerlifting is is it's different but similarly it it lets me focus on just one thing and I find that to be so useful in part because um every other way I have of um of relaxing or taking a break from the writing still involves thinking about the writing you know so reading for sure um watching a film or a show um engaging in any of the like going to a museum watching the ballet even talking with friends there it's very hard to not always be thinking about the writing at the same time in one way or another for something to remind me of their writing to have to write something down um and when I'm power lifting I am not thinking about the writing and it's so nice would recommend and then then there's also got to be like the endorphins that happen after you've done a session what do you call it a powerlifting session is that what it's called Uh yeah you call it a session you could just yeah okay I just want to make sure I get the terminology right but you know it's like that it's like it wipes the hard drive clean or it just gives you some free you know some freedom from the static of your mind mind and then you get the rush of endorphins I totally get that I don't know how anybody lives without that like some version of it it doesn't have to be powerlifting but you've got to have something uh and it's also I've read I want to say like powerlifting is sort of having a moment like it's really good for your health to lift like to your threshold right like they I keep seeing this being recommended as like a healthy activity good for your long-term Health it's really good for your health it's really good for your bones um it's it's it's just uh yeah and it feels great honestly um it makes it makes me feel so it makes me feel so powerful in the moment when um when I'm when I'm when I'm lifting at the at the very threshold of what I'm capable of doing um and and um you know I've thought a lot about how I'm not sure how scientific this is but I read somewhere that um the rates of depression and anxiety among writers um tends to be I I don't know if this is true but I'm just say it tends to be meaningfully higher than among visual artists and um and in my and i' I've wondered why um and one friend said um and you know friends friends have you know I've noticed this that like at artist residencies and places that um the visual artists just seem to be a little bit less glum than the than the writers tend to be um and I wonder if in this was my friend's idea um I wonder if it's because visual artists move around so much more than we do you know it's very easy for a writer to just sit at their desk for hours and hours and never move a muscle except to maybe get some water um and some food um and and our bodies aren't supposed to do this our bodies are built for moving around and so and so yeah whatever whatever we can do to and you do this at a gym you don't have like a setup at your house or your apartment no I wish I did that would be great but the gym I go to is really close by um and because yeah the weights are so are so massive that they wouldn't fit in my San Francisco apartment by any means I was going to say you would have to have a pretty cool apartment if you've got like a powerlifting you know a powerlifting room this is my P do you have a powerlifting Shaw or no do you have like your own like I don't that would be pretty badass if you did though show up in your you know fuchsia Shaw for powerlifting um so but is this and I'm just asking out of curiosity it's just called powerlifting what's the name of the other cross no it's not cross trainining but it's uh CrossFit there's like CrossFit is it CrossFit that you're doing or is it just powerlifting no um I think I would really like CrossFit but I haven't tried it in part because um well um once when I was in the ER with the rock climbing injury which was what I used to love to do um and I stopped because I just I it just kept spraining my ankle and at some point I was like this is ridiculous I can't keep wandering around on crutches um but when I went to the ER with one of several um of the climbing injuries that I that I ended up having um the doctor shook his head and he said you bouldering people because I would Boulder which means you don't climb with a rope um you bouldering people are just as bad as the crossfitters you're here every single week and and um and so yeah crossfitting people who CrossFit um there it's a it's a it's it's an activity that is especially prone to injury um but it looks so fun I really want to do it but yeah well congratulations to you I always ask as I did the last time we spoke if there's anything else in the pipeline are you working on another book or are you just celebrating this one I've been trying very hard to work on um I I I did get I I've started working on the next novel um and I I it's it's not even that I'm in C it's just that I'm not sure what it is yet but um I it the way exhibit exists in the same universe as the incendiaries um so they're you know they're very Loosely connected um and there's a little bit of overlap um I think the next book also exists in the same universe and I think it's quite possible that Jin H Han's um my narrator's photos are going to show up in the next um in the next in the next book um and I think I might be working toward either a Trilogy a tryptic or a quartet of books that are that are Loosely connected and have some overlapping um obsessions and motifs okay well we will look forward to it congratulations to you and thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me oh of course thank you so much thank you for [Music]

Channel: Otherppl with Brad Listi Podcast

Views: 172

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Id: J2OtaLMBwig

Length: 70min 50sec (4250 seconds)

Published: Wed May 29 2024