Category: Siel

Siel Ju’s publications and events

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I’m reading at Poetry Palooza 5/2

Though I mostly write fiction now, I did go to grad school for poetry — and have published two poetry chapbooks I rarely get to read from. But I’ll be doing that in a couple days at Poetry Palooza!

Poetry Palooza is an annual event organized by the Northridge Creative Writing Circle, a student group at Cal State Northridge. This year, it happens Thu., May 2. I’ll read at 5 pm in Jerome Richfield Hall, room 201 (driving directions here).

Looking forward to getting to read with Nicelle Davis again — and to meeting Sophia Apodaca. Thank you to Sam Bowers and other Cal State Northridge students for organizing this event.

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I’m reading at UC Riverside Writers Week Conference 2019

I’ve long dreamed of reading at the same event as Margaret Atwood and Rachel Cusk — and next month, it’s really happening!

UC Riverside’s 42nd Annual Writers Week Conference happens February 4-5 and 11-15, 2019. Margaret Atwood will be there to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award, Rachel Cusk will be there to give the keynote, and I — will be there as one of the writers.

There’ll be 23 writers in all, including Aimee Bender, Quincy Troupe, and Chris Kraus. And it’s all free, including parking! In fact Writers Week is California’s longest-running free literary event.

Hope to see you there. My reading will be Tue., Feb. 12 at 2:30 pm. All events happen on the UC Riverside campus in Screening Room 1128 of Interdisciplinary Building South — except for one off-site event in L.A. featuring Ayesha H. Attah on Feb. 16.

Thank you to Tom Lutz and UC Riverside for organizing this event.

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See you at Book Soup 10/25

If you have a literary sweet tooth, come to Book Soup next Thursday for the launch of Tammy Lynne Stoner’s novel Sugar Land! I’ll be reading with her — as will Jillian Lauren, author of New York Times bestseller Some Girls: My Life in a Harem.

What: Tammy Lynne Stoner, with Jillian Lauren and Siel Ju (Facebook event page)
When: Thursday, October 25, 2018, 7 pm
Where: Book Soup, 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, Calif.

Sugar Land tells the story of Dara, a Southern girl in the 1920s who has a brief love affair with her girlfriend Rhodie — then decides to hide her lesbianism by exiling herself as a cook in a men’s prison. The beginning’s pretty grim but overall the novel tells a funny and exuberant tale of a woman’s long coming of age story.

Come hear Tammy read it in person — and say hi to me too! There will be an after-party at the Grafton hotel —

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I have new stories in The Southern Review and Confrontation

I’m excited and honored to have a short story each in the Summer 2018 issues of The Southern Review and Confrontation — two of the literary journals I most admire!

“Alone or Someone Else” in The Southern Review is about a young woman who gets pregnant after a one night stand with an action film star. Here’s a short excerpt:

Even after I was showing, I kept working at the lingerie shop, the trashy one in Westwood. All my coworkers were UCLA students a half decade my junior. They were nice to me. Carly told me not to worry, they’d never fire me while that Nasty Gal lawsuit was still news. Lana confided that her mom had raised her kids alone by going back to stripping: “And we turned out just fine!” Between Lana and Carly, I always had someone to hold my hair while I puked. “It’ll be hard sometimes but totally doable,” Lana would say, rubbing my back.

Is your interest piqued? Get 25 percent off this issue or a subscription by using the code FRIEND543 at The Southern Review’s store.

“Hands” in Confrontation is about a guy who, well, doesn’t like his hands — an insecurity that ends up having deep repercussions on his life. Here’s a short excerpt:

The first memory of your shame, though you didn’t realize it as such at the time, is of your mother. She looked old even then, in her forties, sitting in her nightdress next to you half-tucked into bed, massaging a medicinal lotion into your hands. It was a nightly ritual you were used to, something your seven-year-old self assumed all mothers did with their sons, although the sensations of this particular night are the first ones you remember because there was a twitchiness in her eyes. This made you uneasy, enough so that when your father also came in the room, holding your baby sister Annie, and stood leaning against your desk, you realized you’d almost been expecting this.

Pick up a copy of the issue at Confrontation!

Both stories are part of a longer collection I’m working on called Defects — though honestly, I’m not actively working on it, since I’m trying to focus on the novel I’m also writing. It’s so hard to find time for all the projects I want to pursue —

I hope you enjoy these stories —

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Fallbrook Writers’ Conference: Free one-day event in San Diego County

Finally, a writing conference even starving writers can afford!

Make a day trip to North San Diego County this fall for the Fallbrook Writer’s Conference, and you’ll get to attend craft presentations, learn about the business aspects of writing, pitch your book to an agent, and have lunch with an author — all for free.

Falbrook Writer’s Conference
Sunday, September 16, 2018, 9 am to 4:30 pm
Fallbrook Library, 124 S. Mission Rd., Fallbrook, Calif.

I’m really looking forward to this event because I’ll be one of the presenting and lunching writers — along with Deanne Stillman, Sara Marchant, Laura McNeal, Vibiana Aparicio-Chamberlin, Suzy Fincham-Gray, and Joye Johnson.

Plus, a handful of agents will be at the event  — as will the intrepid organizer, Kit-Bacon Gressitt.

Check out the full schedule here (PDF). Registration’s open until September 15, but if you’d like to go, get your free ticket now — The intimate conference is capped at 100 attendees.

Hope to see you in Fallbrook —

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Thanks to Lunch Ticket for interviewing me about Cake Time

The MFA community at Antioch University Los Angeles has its own online literary journal called Lunch Ticket, and the Summer/Fall 2018 issue features an interview with me about Cake Time and the writing life. Here’s an excerpt:

KK: In Cake Time, readers follow an unnamed narrator as she dives into one bad relationship after another. The anonymity of the narrator and her experiences in dating gives her an “everywoman” feeling, like she could be any one of us. What drew you to center the experience of dating?

SJ: I can’t remember which book of Andre Breton’s I’m thinking of here, but in one of them, he pictures all his ex-lovers sitting in a row, across from a row of his former selves. Or at least that’s how I remember what he wrote. In any case I think in many ways our memories of past relationships are really memories of our past selves, selves that did and said things or acted and reacted in ways that can seem bizarre and illogical and confounding to our present selves. And romantic relationships—most of which tend to have a relatively clear beginning and an end (vs. friendships or familial relationships that go on for long periods of time with lots of permutations), and are serial in nature (most people have multiple friends but usually just one romantic partner at a time)—can be an interesting way of looking at the phases of our lives, the ways we and our wants and desires and motivations have changed or haven’t.

That said I’m not sure what I just said is what I was really thinking about when I was writing Cake Time. Even now, I don’t really think of the stories as being about a series of relationships—I think rather of phases of a girl/woman’s life. There are feelings and emotions that are very specific to certain moments in life—the feelings you have as a teenage girl are pretty different from the ones you have as a woman in her thirties, etc.—and I wanted to distill some of those feelings and emotions in discrete moments for Cake Time‘s protagonist.

Read the whole interview over at Lunch Ticket! And thanks to Kori Kessler, co-associate managing editor of Lunch Ticket, for the generous interview. Hope you’re enjoying your travels in Europe!