Whispering from his cubicle
Kate Tighe
Issue date: 4/4/07 Section: Features
- Page 1 of 2 next >
On Tuesday of last week, the usually warm faculty assistant Paul Yoon slunk into his cubicle on the fourth floor of the Taubman building, looking drained.
"How are you?" I asked him.
"I'm cranky. I'm moody. I'm ravenous, always. I feel like I'm pregnant," he says. Yoon, of course, isn't pregnant. But he is waiting for a birth of sorts; he has written a book of short stories and is looking for a publisher.
Yoon, 27, is a faculty assistant to Pepper Culpepper, Associate Professor of Public Policy, Sandy Jencks, Malcolm Wiener Professor of Social Policy and Jane Mansbridge, Adams Professor of Political Leadership and Democratic Values. Four publishing houses had rejected his book the day before.
"I get the most glowing rejection letters," Yoon says. "We loved it, it was great. We are not going to publish it."
Despite the latest rejections, Yoon's work was included in the Best American Short Stories of 2006. Entitled Once the Shore, the story was the first Paul had ever published.
Another story was just accepted by the literary journal Ploughshares, and on March 5 Yoon was one of four writers honored at PEN New England's Annual Discovery Evening. After he was selected by PEN, Reviewer Jan Gardner wrote in The Boston Globe that, "Paul Yoon is off to a fast start." And he is.
His career may be rapid in its take-off, but his work is slow in its style. Yoon describes his writing as "quiet." At the Discovery Night, Yoon was introduced by Lise Haines, author of In My Sister's Country and Small Acts of Sex and Electricity, who said that Yoon "whispers" in his stories, and "we lean in closer" to hear what he will say next.
The stories in the collection he is trying to publish revolve around a small island off the coast of Korea. In the tradition of author Joan Didion, whom Yoon admires, his writing is characterized by a sense of place.
"I think place is so important. It almost becomes a character, in and of itself," he says.
"How are you?" I asked him.
"I'm cranky. I'm moody. I'm ravenous, always. I feel like I'm pregnant," he says. Yoon, of course, isn't pregnant. But he is waiting for a birth of sorts; he has written a book of short stories and is looking for a publisher.
Yoon, 27, is a faculty assistant to Pepper Culpepper, Associate Professor of Public Policy, Sandy Jencks, Malcolm Wiener Professor of Social Policy and Jane Mansbridge, Adams Professor of Political Leadership and Democratic Values. Four publishing houses had rejected his book the day before.
"I get the most glowing rejection letters," Yoon says. "We loved it, it was great. We are not going to publish it."
Despite the latest rejections, Yoon's work was included in the Best American Short Stories of 2006. Entitled Once the Shore, the story was the first Paul had ever published.
Another story was just accepted by the literary journal Ploughshares, and on March 5 Yoon was one of four writers honored at PEN New England's Annual Discovery Evening. After he was selected by PEN, Reviewer Jan Gardner wrote in The Boston Globe that, "Paul Yoon is off to a fast start." And he is.
His career may be rapid in its take-off, but his work is slow in its style. Yoon describes his writing as "quiet." At the Discovery Night, Yoon was introduced by Lise Haines, author of In My Sister's Country and Small Acts of Sex and Electricity, who said that Yoon "whispers" in his stories, and "we lean in closer" to hear what he will say next.
The stories in the collection he is trying to publish revolve around a small island off the coast of Korea. In the tradition of author Joan Didion, whom Yoon admires, his writing is characterized by a sense of place.
"I think place is so important. It almost becomes a character, in and of itself," he says.
Be the first to comment on this story