Join us
on Monday, October 23rd at 7:00 PM when author CAROL ROH SPAULDING appears to read from, discuss, and sign her new book of short stories, Waiting for Mr. Kim and Other
Stories. Carol will be joined in conversation by VANESSA HUA.
This is a free event, but you must register through Eventbrite or at the bookstore. Click Here to preorder a copy of Waiting For Mr. Kim and Other Stories.
This collection of linked stories follows four generations of the Songs, a Korean American family, beginning in 1924 just prior to the Immigration Act and extending to near the end of the century. Linked stories, or stories that form a story cycle, are a common book-length form seen in Asian American literature that accommodates multiple perspectives across generations and locations. Through this story cycle, patterns emerge as cultural identity and individuality, often in tension with one another, shape choices and outcomes.
With these stories, Carol Roh Spaulding charts shifting definitions of “Americanness” across time through the arc of a family narrative. She also explores desire and belonging as articulated, in turns, by the mother, father, granddaughter, great-grandson, and even a ghost child who died after a tragic accident. But these linked stories center on the life experiences of Gracie Song. They follow her from girlhood to young motherhood, through her children’s teenage years, and finally to her elderly solitude, when to her great astonishment she finds romance with a younger man and reconciliation with an estranged daughter—both unexpected gifts of later life.
CAROL ROH SPAULDING received the 2022 Flannery O’Conner Award for Short Fiction from University of Georgia Press, selected by Lori Ostlund. Her stories and essays have appeared in several publications including Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, and December magazine. Awards for her work include a Pushcart Prize, Best American Essays 2019 Notable Mention, and the Eludia prize from Hidden River Arts for her forthcoming novel, Helen Button (Sowilo Press). A California native and grand-daughter of Korean immigrants, she teaches at Drake University in Des Moines and lives in rural Iowa with her family.
VANESSA HUA is the author of the national bestsellers A River of Stars and Forbidden City, as well as Deceit and Other Possibilities, a New York Times Editors Pick. A National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow, she has also received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, a Steinbeck Fellowship in Creative Writing, and a de Groot Foundation Writer of Note grant, as well as awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Asian American Journalists Association, among others. A former longtime columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, her work has appeared in publications including the New York Times, Washington Post, and The Atlantic. The daughter of Chinese immigrants, she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family.
THIS EVENT is free but pre-registration is required. Registration ends at 4:30 pm on October 23rd.
BECAUSE SEATING is limited, please register only if you plan to attend.
DUE TO SPACE limitations, we may not be able to accommodate every person at an event, so early registration is encouraged.
WALK-INS will be accommodated only if space allows.
WE ASK that attendees arrive between 6:45 and 7:00 PM for the event.
PLEASE leave your non-support companion animals at home.
OUR shared restrooms are not accessible after 6:30 PM, please plan accordingly.
