By Liz G\u00f3mez<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had the incredible privilege to interview Rita Chun, who is the author of the upcoming Wilde Press novella TwoSpanTime<\/em>. Her kindness, passion for writing, and talent for words shone in each response\u2014each word and sentence\u2014to the questions I asked. In a little less than an hour, she gave me glimpses into the nuanced, emotion-filled, funny, witty, happy, sad, strange, relatable, and thought-provoking worlds of her stories. No number of words, questions, or answers, however, can fully paint the beautiful picture of TwoSpanTime<\/em>; you\u2019ll just have to read it to understand the genius of Rita Chun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n LIZ<\/p>\n\n\n\n When did you first encounter poetry or prose? What was the piece? Did it, directly or indirectly, influence TwoSpanTime<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n RITA CHUN<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first story I ever liked was Stella Luna<\/em>. It made me want to draw pictures and write stories. It\u2019s about a bat, and I really like animal stories. It\u2019s really wholesome. \u201cUrban Spelunking\u201d has a bat in it, so maybe there\u2019s a connection there. I\u2019m not sure, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LIZ<\/p>\n\n\n\n How did TwoSpanTime<\/em> begin? As a thought? A poem? A creative writing assignment? <\/p>\n\n\n\n RITA CHUN<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first story [\u201cThe Myth of Disappearing\u201d] was just after I broke up with my ex. I was also in Korea, and I was inspired by its myths about tigers. It put me in the mood to write. Old people go through a lot. They are at the end of their candle wick, living out the rest of their days. You have till the end of your days to live. The grey woman doesn\u2019t want to be forgotten; she wants to live again. \u201cThe Last Neanderthal\u201d was part of a workshop piece. When I was in Ireland, I wrote the other stories; I knitted \u201cThe Myth of Disappearing,\u201d \u201cThe Last Neanderthal,\u201d and them all together. When I am in a mood, it translates to when I write. I see a connection that some other people may not see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LIZ<\/p>\n\n\n\n What, then, was the evolution of the piece? Did it grow organically\u2014easily? Or was it hard to expand upon it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n RITA CHUN<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was difficult. I wanted it to seem organic. In the beginning, I didn\u2019t have that many stories. The second section [of the novella] didn\u2019t exist. I kept adding stories. Then, I had to rearrange them so many times to make them significant. I added easter eggs and words that repeat; the first time they are used had to be significant. \u201cThe Myth of Disappearing\u201d was originally at the end because it was dense and philosophical. I wanted the fun stuff to come first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LIZ<\/p>\n\n\n\n From reading your author\u2019s extract, you mention how a creative writing class that you took in Ballyvaughan, Ireland, inspired you to write many of the scenes of TwoSpanTime<\/em>. Could you talk about that more? How did the landscape of this village in Ireland and the Burren help bring your story to life?<\/p>\n\n\n\n RITA CHUN<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of the stories were written there. When I was there, I was extremely attuned to the wind and the sound of nothing. It felt like everything was connected, and it was really intense. The feeling of connectedness helped me create stories and put them together. It helped me make sense of my experiences and output them as fiction. Fiction is an art form; any artform is expressing something that you can\u2019t through conversation. But where I was there, I missed the city. I felt like I was going crazy. I was in the middle of nowhere!<\/p>\n\n\n\n LIZ<\/p>\n\n\n\n What was your writing routine for TwoSpanTime<\/em>? Did you have any rituals to help get you into the right mindset?<\/p>\n\n\n\n RITA CHUN<\/p>\n\n\n\n I wrote most of it in the writing program. We had a lot<\/em> of time to write. I mostly wrote this in the dining room and the little sunroom at the place we stayed in. I tried writing outside. When I was on the grass, I felt like there were bugs on me. It wasn\u2019t comfortable. My back hurt! I wrote the stories on my computer; I wrote the poems on paper because writing poems is a very fast process. Writing a story is a long-run thing; if you wrote a story on paper, your body would give out before your mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LIZ<\/p>\n\n\n\n Which narrative of the story\u2014i.e. the grandmother teaching her grandson the difference between sound and noise, the \u201cgrey woman\u201d and a tiger searching for her fingers, or the woman traveling through some narrow tunnels in NYC\u2014was the most difficult to write? Why? Which narrative was the easiest?<\/p>\n\n\n\n RITA CHUN<\/p>\n\n\n\n The easiest was \u201cYesterday\u2019s Manhattan.\u201d That one just flowed. It was inspired by a newspaper article that I read a year before. Leslie Marmon Silko had a quote where she said, something along the lines of, being a writer does not require genius. It\u2019s a matter of catching up on yesterday\u2019s news. This helped me feel better about writing a story based on a real-life event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The hardest was \u201cUrban Spelunking.\u201d I had an idea. When I initially wrote it out, it was very bare bones. There was nothing stylistically to it. I had to go back and add the graffiti, the cell phone with the moon wallpaper, and other parts. That story was the more vulnerable one to write.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LIZ<\/p>\n\n\n\n Which character in TwoSpanTime<\/em> did you have the most fun writing? Which character was the most difficult to understand?<\/p>\n\n\n\n RITA CHUN<\/p>\n\n\n\n The grey woman was the most fun to write because I like writing in that archaic, weird tone. It\u2019s such a common thing in workshops to avoid fancier, purple prose writing. But it allowed me to write the other grey woman stories, \u201cManic Pixie Forest Girls,\u201d and \u201cUrban Spelunking.\u201d None of the characters were particularly hard to write. I felt like I understood all them. The boy was somewhat hard. While I felt what his character was feeling, I couldn\u2019t make his emotions logical. I was almost forcing the boy to speak; it was getting the character out of his shell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LIZ<\/p>\n\n\n\n Was it difficult to write in so many different perspectives? Or did you think it was easier than confining yourself to one POV? One story?<\/p>\n\n\n\n RITA CHUN<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was easier because I was trying to crank out a longer piece, but I couldn\u2019t. I found myself writing a lot of vignettes. Every time I would write one, I felt there was a connection to the last piece I wrote. I didn\u2019t want to change the characters, so I added some references that could be connective tissues. Before the editing process with Sam and Maggie, it was murky. Now, it\u2019s intentionally murky and connected better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LIZ<\/p>\n\n\n\n How did writing TwoSpanTime<\/em> help you grow as a person?<\/p>\n\n\n\n RITA CHUN<\/p>\n\n\n\n I realized I could write a novella. I tried writing two novellas in the past, but I couldn\u2019t finish them. I never had that much to say about a singular story. The longer a story went on, the more I was bored with it. With this piece, it was fun finding a story to add in. As I grow older, I can write longer pieces; it\u2019s about attention span and maturity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LIZ<\/p>\n\n\n\n Was writing TwoSpanTime<\/em> a cathartic experience?<\/p>\n\n\n\n RITA CHUN<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, for sure. I personally felt fractured and confused before writing it. The semester had just ended. I moved from Boston to Korea, and it was jarring. I felt accomplished by putting different puzzle pieces together and making a whole. Even though nothing was solved in the ending, the stories still feel whole. Everything is still open. The door is still open. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s a quote that goes like, \u201cStories have meaning, but life has significances. Meaning is only found in the ending.\u201d Translating life\u2019s significances into a story with no set meaning was cathartic. Nothing has to be resolved. There\u2019s no closure at the end that gives meaning to the whole piece. But that\u2019s the point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LIZ<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you had the ability to, what would you say to readers before they read TwoSpanTime<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n RITA CHUN<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI wrote this. Here you go.\u201d I feel like everything you get out of the story comes from the person who reads it. I am reluctant to take another person\u2019s reading of a story. I like fiction because anything goes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Liz G\u00f3mez I had the incredible privilege to interview Rita Chun, who is the author of the upcoming Wilde Press novella TwoSpanTime. 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