The Public and the Private Author

Today, I am thrilled to welcome Jean Kwok, NYT hugely bestselling author of Girl in Translation.  If you haven’t read Girl in Translation, finish reading this post and RUN to read it!  My review is here.

Here’s Jean (and doesn’t this post make you want to go hear her in person!):

When you’re sitting in front of your computer, desperately trying to finish your first novel and get it published, no one tells you that your whole world is going to change when you succeed. That’s probably a good thing because as we all know, the chances of finishing and publishing are extremely slim anyway. Much has been written about getting an agent and finding your first foothold in the blindingly competitive world of publishing so I’m not going to discuss that here. I want to tell you what it was like for me after I – despite all odds and my own expectations – succeeded.

Let me first tell you a bit about what I’m like. A lovely and social friend of mine looked at me searchingly the other day and asked, “Don’t you get lonely? Working on a book for so long?”

I answered truthfully, “I love it.”

And I do. I love being alone with my thoughts and dreams. I love shaping a whole world filled with intriguing characters for my readers. In fact, I’m no good at the social stuff at all. At parties, I tend to talk to the small children and little old ladies. When I was doing my MFA at Columbia and a legendary editor came to speak, I understood why a huge crowd of students surrounded her afterward. But I was the one who snuck out the back door. I did send her a story and she actually plucked it out of the slush pile and published it. She became a great supporter of mine. Much later, after we’d become friends, I finally told her about that first time I saw her.

 She asked, “Why on earth didn’t you come up and meet me then?”

 “I was shy,” I said.

 Now, solitary and shy don’t really add up to the ideal qualities for a public author. After my book was sold, I flew to New York to meet my incredibly friendly and intelligent publicity team at Riverhead/Penguin and somehow, they decided to send me out into the world. The first thing I needed was an author photo. Another thing I suffer from is FFF: Frozen Fearful Face syndrome. This means that whenever you point a camera at me, my entire face freezes. Very much like a deer in the headlights. So this was a bit of a challenge for the famous photographer, who kept reminding me in a singsong voice, “We are intelligent… Harvard girl…” during the shoot.

Then I needed to be prepared for my first national tour, a pre-publication tour through the US, meeting journalists and booksellers. I was sent to a nine-hour media training session, where they not only filmed me but also did role-plays, such as the trainer pretending to be a journalist whose only goal was to get me to say the stupidest thing possible. He succeeded. It was not fun at all. I sat down that evening and everything I’d done wrong at the media training session raced through my mind. I’d blanked out. On video, I looked like a rabbit on speed. I stumbled when I tried to repeat any of the answers I’d prepared. My brother, an important part of my debut novel, had just died in an airplane crash three months before and I didn’t know if I could talk about him or my past as a child sweatshop worker without breaking down in tears. And the next day, I had my first public event: the top journalists of New York City had been invited to a luncheon at the Museum of Modern Art to meet a new literary author – me.

Somehow I survived. None of the journalists were nearly as difficult as the trainer had been (which had been his purpose, to simulate the worst possible scenario.) In fact, throughout the entire tour, everyone was extremely kind to me and with their help, I managed to get through it all.

Now, I’ve just completed my third national tour for this one debut novel of mine and I have to say that I actually enjoyed it. I’ve learned to speak in public. I never had a problem meeting readers because I love book people, being one myself. The book’s been published in 15 countries so I’ve traveled all over the world by now. In fact, next week I’ll be flying to London to attend one of the most important literary parties in the English-speaking world. My book’s been named an Orange New Writers title, which means I’ll be going to the famed Orange Awards ceremony, along with everyone who is anyone in the UK publishing world. And guess what? I’ll be in the corner, talking to any small children and little old ladies I can find.

What are you reading and where are you going?