November 5, 2025 • 29 mins
Linda Sue Park, Newbery Medalist and author of A Single Shard and A Long Walk to Water, reflects on growing up without stories that reflected her Korean identity, the importance of representation in books, and how reading helps young people develop deep thinking skills. She also shares the real-world impact of A Long Walk to Water, which inspired students to raise millions for clean water projects in South Sudan and discusses how stories give children a safe space to practice life.
2:04 How her creative journey began, childhood reading and early influences
6:07 Lack of identity representation in childhood reading
6:16 Experiences growing up Korean American and early awareness of difference
6:46 How representation influenced her writing and Korean historical focus
23:26 Discussion of A Long Walk to Water and its global impact
23:51 Credit to her husband’s journalism and origins of the story of Salva Dut
24:12 How the book spread through classrooms and inspired students to act
26:19 How it felt to see the book’s real world impact
26:23 Reflections on young readers’ response and her newest book about coral reefs
26:56 Question about advice to her younger self
27:07 Advice, embracing what makes you different
27:27 How would you present that in book form
27:29 Continuing reflections, being true to oneself and finding strengths in difference
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
It is so remarkable to be a writer of books for young people
because you will never again love a book the way you do when
you're a child. You can ask people who are 70
and 80 and 90 years old what wasyour favorite book when you were
a kid and they remember. Welcome to Unapologetically
(00:27):
Creative, a podcast from the Vermont College of Fine Arts,
where we celebrate bold artistry, transformative
creativity, and the audacious voices shaping the future of the
arts. I'm your host, Andrew Ram Sammy,
and in this series we dive into honest, inspiring conversations
(00:48):
with artists who are pushing boundaries and redefining what
it means to create work that resonates and endures.
Linda Sue Park is an author and Newberry medalist whose books
have touched readers of all ages.
In this episode, she shares how her lifelong love of stories
began and how the absence of Asian and Korean American
(01:11):
characters shaped her path as a writer, and how her work has
gone on to inspire both readers and real world impact.
We'll talk about the movement for more diverse children's
books. The science of why reading
matters and why creativity, whether through words.
Art. Cooking or building is essential
(01:33):
for all of us. Linda Sue Park, welcome to
Unapologetically Creative. Thank you for having me and
thank you for that lovely introduction.
So Linda, you're not just a writer.
You're a writer who's actually delivering the type of impact
that that people would hope to see.
But typically that happens aftertheir their lifetime, their
(01:54):
natural lives, and you're actually doing this in real
time. So before we get to that, tell
us how did you start on your on this creative journey?
Well, the earliest I can go backto is that I was a reader, you
know, I, it was the Stone Age. We didn't have digital
entertainment, right? We had a television.
(02:15):
It was black and white. There were three channels, you
know, and it was always the newsor whatever.
Books were definitely my escapism, my entertainment, and
I love to read more than anything else.
So that was the start of it. Although when I was growing up,
there was no such thing as an author visit in the schools.
You know, I didn't know anyone who was an author.
(02:37):
My parents didn't know anyone who was an author.
And the books were just sort of the, you know, they're in the
library for me, right? It was a long time before I sort
of made the connection that realpeople wrote these things,
right? And for the longest time, what I
wanted to be when I grew up, if you'd have asked me, was a
reader. You know, what kind of job can
(02:57):
you have where you get to read all the time?
And I majored in English in college because you got to read
a lot. And after that I had a whole
bunch of what I call English major jobs, advertising, public
relations, journalism. I did everything that you could
think of that involved writing and yet never occurred to me to
write a book. And it wasn't until my late 30s.
(03:19):
So which is a lot later than a lot of people get started who
are interested in writing books.It wasn't until my late 30s that
I was, I was having, I had children of my own.
And I realized that when I was getting books for them, some of
them were new and some of them were books I had loved as a
child. And it was just this Eureka
(03:41):
moment for me, which is like, Ohmy God, this is what I want to
do. You know, that period in my life
where there was so much love forbooks, You know, I want to
relive that by writing some of my own.
So that was the impetus. Were there certain books that
you were that you would gravitate?
Towards in reading. It's really interesting because
when I was growing up, there were almost no books about
(04:02):
Asians or Asian Americans, right?
We had a couple that were reallyracist and people might know
them without even mentioning them.
So I was asked once by a magazine to list 3 influential
books from when I was a child. And I was like, oh, this is
going to be really hard. All right, I'm just going to
write the first three that come to mind, right?
Because I was not going to spenda lot of time mining the memory.
(04:24):
And I just wrote them down and Ibegan to write about them.
And all three of them were aboutbrown people or black people
because that's what I had for otherness.
I didn't have Asians, and I could not have articulated to
you that I need a book about somebody who's not mainstream
American. I couldn't have told you that at
age 9 or 10. But when those books, when I
(04:46):
wrote down those 3 titles, I waslike, Oh my gosh, I needed it
back then without even knowing that I needed it.
Do. You remember what those three
titles? Were I do unfortunately a lot
out of print. One of them was called I Juan de
Barrera and that is a Newberry winner.
So that's still in print. And it was about a black slave
who was the assistant to the great painter Velasquez and who
(05:08):
was eventually freed and became an incredible painter in his own
right. And then there was a book called
What Then Rahman about an Indianboy, meaning India, the country
who is the 1st in his family to learn how to read.
So that really resonated with me.
And the the third book called Roosevelt Grady, which was about
(05:31):
a black boy growing up in a migrant worker family who wanted
more than anyone anything else to have a library card, which he
couldn't have because he couldn't give a fixed residence
for his address. And because the library was such
a huge part of my life, I just, it broke my heart that this boy
couldn't have a library card. So again, there were just things
(05:55):
in those stories that that spoketo me in a way I could not have
told you why at the time, why they were my favorites, but I
reread them over and over and over again.
Still love those books. At what point did you realize
that there was something that was missing, that that lack of
representation and your identityhad not been displayed in what
you had been reading and what was available?
(06:16):
You know, you grew up in the shelter of your family and your
family is your family. They're just like they are.
And it's only when you go out into the world, right?
So I was the only Korean in my school, one of only very few
Asians and got teased mercilessly about my eyes and
about other things. So that's their your first
indication. OK.
You know, in my family, this is just what it is.
I'm just normal. But out in this world people
(06:39):
think there's something if not wrong with me than at least
different about me. Where did you grow up?
I grew up in a small town outside Chicago, and I knew that
I wanted to explore what it meant to be Korean when I began
writing for young people. And from the response of the of,
of the outside, oh, these are the first books I've ever seen
that have Korean characters. Oh, these, you know, I, I, it
(07:01):
was not an activist impulse thatmade me write those books.
It was personal. I wanted to know about more and
more about Korea and about Korea's history because my first
four books are Korean historicals.
So I was writing for, you know, to, to learn more for myself.
But the response was, oh, my goodness, you know, I, I've
needed these books for my children.
So that it was again, an outsideimpulse that made me think, oh,
(07:24):
maybe there is more to this thanjust satisfying my own personal
curiosity. And then much later in my
career, I'm going to say it was 15 years later, the We Need
Diverse Books movement began in children's books, started as a
hashtag on what was then Twitter, and it changed the
(07:47):
publishing industry, the children's publishing industry.
A woman named Ellen O, who is also Korean American, and
several of her colleagues who were of all stripes, began a
movement saying we need more books to represent all children,
all readers. And since then, since 2014 and
(08:08):
2015, they incorporated as a nonprofit.
The numbers have changed dramatically.
There are now many more books, many more books for both, for
children who want to see themselves reflected in stories.
And in a way, I think even more importantly for people who are
in the mainstream or in the majority to see that all of
(08:30):
these lives merit literature that, you know, we're limited in
so long to thinking. I, I mean, I just like, I guess
being Korean is just not important enough to be in books.
Is that what it is? How come there's never anything?
I guess we just don't matter, you know, and you don't say
that, but if it's year after year after year that you never
(08:50):
see yourself reflected in a book, the message gets, oh, you
know, your story doesn't really matter, right?
And so this great change that that's happened over the past
eight or nine years, I would say, where we're not done yet,
we have a lot of work still to do, but where many more children
can say, hey, I am important enough for people who look like
(09:11):
me are important enough for literature.
I mean, Korean culture in the mainstream probably right now is
like on that meteoric continuingto rise, rise, rise, rise.
But Korean culture also has beendepicted in some very not so
nice ways, right? And I think the most searing
image that I have in my head is how what happened during Rodney
(09:34):
King and the here in LA and whathappened to Korean store owners
and that whole depiction of, of,of what it meant to be a Korean
store owner during that time in the mainstream.
So how do you balance all of that from the meteoric rise of
like all the K pop stuff that's happening to back to that kind
(09:55):
of Seminole moment in history for Korean American culture and
what happened here in Los Angeles in the USI?
Think one person can't balance it?
So what we need is 10 or 20 or 30,000 stories about everybody.
OK, but just I'll talk about Korean, American or Korean
because that's what I know. So if you have that number, then
(10:16):
there's no one image that makes.That's what's Korean American.
You think about what white children have, what mainstream
children, they have millions of stories and books to choose
from. And therefore nobody ever says
that's the white story, right? Because we know that's a
multiplicity of experience. So that's what every
marginalized community needs. They need that many stories so
(10:40):
that there isn't a single image,which is how you get the
stereotype and how you get the hate and how you get all of
those things you need, you know,you need quantity matters.
We want quality too, of course. But but the number of stories
that you need, you know, so somepeople will say, oh, I don't
know, you know, so and so has already written this kind of
(11:01):
book about whatever this kind ofethnicity, I'm like, you write
yours, it will be a little different.
It'll be different enough. And we need 10,000 of them.
So, you know, that's what that'swhat I would say to, for
example, young Korean Americans who are starting out right, you
know. Would you hate it if I said?
That it's kind of like every recipe for kimchi is different.
(11:24):
No, that would be very, very true, right?
Right. That every way that, you know,
I'm sure you were taught one wayand there's another way and
there's another way, and there'sa billion ways probably to make
kimchi, right? But the basic Most of them are
delicious, and most of them. Are not all.
But when you know, when people talk about your culture and it
and it, especially in what you're doing specifically with
(11:46):
children's literature, what are you hoping that specifically
within children's literature, you'll be able to address that
perhaps in other genres that arenot children's literature that
you can do? That's a really great question.
A lot of my work young people encounter in school because I
(12:07):
don't write the very popular kind of book that a kid will go
into a bookstore and ask for themselves, right.
A single Shard is about 12th century Korean pottery.
No kid goes into a bookstore saying can I have a book on 12th
century Korean pottery? So they're introduced to my work
through caring teachers and librarians.
That's how they they meet my work.
(12:28):
So I think that part of what needs to happen is the adult
gate gatekeepers. They need to be open to all
sorts of stories, and that oftenmeans stories they're not
familiar with. Of course, teachers want to
teach what they loved, right? But what they loved in their
childhoods has broadened considerably, and they need to
(12:50):
be open to using books that theyare perhaps perhaps were not
beloved by themselves because they didn't exist at the time,
right? So what I think books can do for
a kid is, and there's brain science on this, that when we
read, different parts of our brain are activated than when
we're looking at a screen or looking at something that's
(13:11):
moving. And that reading is such a
complicated skill, OK? It's a really difficult skill.
And that's why it awakens the deep thinking parts of our
brains. So creativity, imagination,
innovation, critic, deep critical thinking happen in
those areas that are nurtured byreading.
(13:33):
And I do worry about that a lot.I worry that if kids are going
so much to screens that that those parts of their brains are
going to atrophy and that that will make a difference to us,
that we won't have the deep thinking that we need for for
problem solving, you know, So I want my books to entertain kids
(13:54):
'cause if the kid is not entertained, they'll put it
down. You know, I don't want it to be
medicine. I want them to love the stories
and to be entertained by them. But at the same time, my hope is
that if they like my book, they look up at the end and they say,
can I get another book like thatthat doesn't have to be mine,
just another. That they will read more and
(14:14):
keep reading because we're leaving them a mess of a world
and they are going to need thosedeep thinking brain cells to fix
the mess that we've left them. I heard you talk about brain
science in your workshop either today or yesterday.
What should writers be aware of or cognizant of when you say
(14:35):
things like that when you bring in brain science into your
discussions? I I want art to be less mystical
for people. I think that creating things is
such an important part of the human experience, no matter what
you do, and that creating is howwe've survived and become the
(14:59):
Lords of the universe that we'd like to think we are.
And so that everybody needs to find a way to create in their
lives. And often we think of the, the
high arts or the Fine Arts, you know, visual arts, painting and
writing and music and dance and things like that.
But there are so many other waysto be creative.
(15:20):
And it's often a matter of discipline and technique and
tools. And that is where your brain
science comes in. Not a matter of, oh, the muse
visited me or oh, I have this innate talent.
I have this gift. OK, fine.
(15:41):
Go, go, go play with your gift. You know, I want everybody to
discover something that they cando that is usually a hand and
brain thing that they can create.
Cooking counts, you know, woodworking counts, gardening
counts, things where you use both your body and your brain
(16:02):
and as I said, off in your handsto create something that wasn't
there before. So it's incredibly satisfying.
And it's how how quote, UN quote, human progress gets made,
you know, So I would like it to.I would like everybody to feel.
Yeah, I can be creative. That's what I hope.
(16:23):
And again, often for many adults, it's too late or that's
not for me, you know. But kids are innately creative.
And what you want to do is not kill it, you know, I don't know
what when it happens, it happensdifferent ages.
But they say, oh, I'm in. I'm in math and science, or I'm
(16:43):
an engineer or I'm a business person.
I'm not creative. Everybody can be creative, no
matter what their field is, whether it's a hobby, an
avocation, or whether it's in the field themselves.
People who we think of are geniuses.
No matter what their field, they're creative.
What do you say to the person that is listening to this and
has had that part of that brain of theirs atrophy because
(17:07):
because of what's happened in our society trying to kill
creativity and to stunt it and to shut it down?
Or to, you know, Abab left, right up, you know, up, down to
like get to it. What do you say to folks who are
you, who are standing in front of you, who are in your
workshops, who are middle-aged or even older and just aren't
(17:27):
kids anymore? Yeah, yeah, it's true.
Well, it's why I choose to work with kids, because there's so
much hope, you know, there's so much potential.
But it's also true of everyone. And I always say, you know what?
What are you passionate about? What do you love?
You know, start there and start small.
You know, you don't have to build a tree house if you're if,
(17:48):
if you decide that that working with wood is something you love.
You know, every there's, there'sjust you know, I did a lecture
today on how my writing happens in 12 minute increments.
OK, I write for 12 minutes at a time because I have 12 minutes,
you know, any at any point in the day.
I am very big on breaking down atask till it's very small and
(18:12):
not scary. And I think that that if you
can, whatever it is you want to do, if you can just take and
make it small and make it doable.
And that gives you that satisfaction and the serotonin
in your brain from the satisfaction that makes you want
to do more. And so that's that's how it
begins. Yeah.
I mean that's, it's almost like you are meeting people where
(18:35):
they're at, right? Yeah.
In those 12 minute little increments, maybe it was 24
minutes a couple of years ago and 36.
Minutes. No, it's true.
I can't. I I had to stumble onto 12,
right? Yes.
Right, You have not only kids have your own, but you only, you
also have grandkids now that arewithin your world.
(18:55):
Are you writing books now with them in mind?
Well, who do you write for? What are you thinking about when
you write and what is that process?
When I'm writing a story, it tends to come out what we call a
middle grade novel, a novel for about 3rd through 7th grade,
ages 7 to 12. OK, because that was my golden
age of reading. So the pace and emotions and
(19:20):
themes, whatever you want to call of of that kind of story is
what's strongest in my brain. So I guess that would mean that
I am writing for the child that I was if I'm accessing that part
of my brain. And yet I don't think about her
either. You know, I have a story I want
to tell. I have a character who has a
problem and the way that they are going to see their way
(19:43):
through the problem is a way that I would do myself, which I
think is maybe like a child would do it in that once again,
I'm going to do small, I'm goingto do small things.
I don't, I, I, I don't think I'ma great big picture person.
I have to see what's in front ofme and fix that and then or
(20:04):
whatever and then go on to the next whatever little thing.
And it's what I tell kids a lot.I said, if you have a really big
problem, try to make it smaller and see if you can handle that
one part of it. And I think of the especially
that age group. Middle grade novels as a safe
place to practice life. OK, We all need all the practice
(20:26):
we can get because life is hard and it's messy.
And in a book, they can see how someone else faces a problem and
they can practice along with that character.
Oh, that's what I would do. Or, Oh no, that's not what I
would do. And it's a safe place to
practice life. And so I guess in my stories,
that is what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to give young readers
(20:48):
a a Safeway to practice and develop skills that are going to
help them later in their lives. But you also in your books, you
you bring in a lot of historicalcontext, right in both a a
single Shard and a long walk to water.
They're not just like Tom's going to school and he's got to
get past the bullies and like it.
(21:08):
I mean, you're like you're you know, it's this is complexity to
this. How do you balance that kind of
depth between historical, emotional and cultural?
And you're dealing with three toseven, you know, people in the
third grade or the 7th grade. First of all, they're like
(21:28):
sponges. You know they just suck up
information, right? I, I often find that they can
grasp things sometimes quicker than adults can.
Certain certain concepts, right?Because there's nothing
preconceived in the way, right? So if I'm writing a book that's
set in a S Sudanese refugee camp, they have 0 experience.
Most of us have 0 experience with that, but they haven't even
(21:49):
seen the news on it, right? So that the information that I
give them is it can be at a basic level because it's their
first exposure to it, right? And so I think about in that,
that that book in particular, A Long Walk to Water, has some
very tough subject matter in it.You know, it's a really hard
book. It's a book about war, right?
(22:10):
And so there are ways that you elite the violence and the
horrible graphicness. You end a chapter and the
character learns the next day that his friend is gone.
OK, so you you trust your readerto fill in that somehow that
character met a terrible end andyou don't write about it in
detail, you know, the way you might in another kind of story,
(22:32):
right? But because historical fiction
set in Korea, a story set in South Sudan, because my settings
are often so unfamiliar to youngpeople, I do introduce some
pretty basic things. And then I just leave it.
(22:54):
And what I'm trying to show there is that historically,
around the world right now, in extreme circumstances, we have,
as Maya Angelou would say, more in common than not.
And so if you can read a book about a boy in 12th century
Korea who seems to have a completely different life than
yours and yet can still recognize his frustration at
(23:18):
things, right, It's, you know, astep towards connection.
Hopefully that will translate toreal people, not just
characters. You mentioned a long walk to
water and that inspired a movement and inspired
fundraising. It's raised 10s of thousands of
dollars to. 4 million. I'm sorry, $4,000,000 to support
(23:41):
Sudanese refugees and communities.
How does it? Feel to see your.
Work create such a tangible impact in the world.
I totally feel like I can't takecredit for it.
First of all, my husband's a journalist, so he wrote many
stories about this young man named Salvadut, and his story
was so incredible that I wanted a version for young people.
(24:03):
So I used his journalism storiesto write this book.
That's how I did the research, so my husband deserves a ton of
credit for that. What's your husband's name?
His name is Ben Dobbin. He's a retired journalist now,
but if you Google him you can find his stories about Salva.
So then the book made it into classrooms and libraries.
And what I thought I was writingwas that one person can make a
(24:27):
different story. You know that you can.
Yeah. Right.
OK. That's not what happened.
You know, I just wanted kids to be inspired, Right?
And instead, I was just flabbergasted.
They went to their adults, and they said, we want to help.
We want to help people like NIA and Salva.
What can we do? So they did walkathons.
They did penny wishing wells. They held bake sales.
(24:49):
And Salva has an organization called Water for South Sudan.
And what he does is he takes that money and he drills clean
water wells all over South Sudan.
And so these young people have raised over the years more than
$4 million. There are at least 400, probably
more by now, wells now in South Sudan being used by people who
(25:09):
have never had clean water before.
And those young people are literally saving people's lives
because there are many babies who die because of dirty water.
And now that they have clean water, they don't die.
And I had no idea that the readers would respond like that.
They taught me, you know, we think of young people as being
(25:31):
relatively powerless. And these young people have just
been so amazing and have made merealize that we have this huge
untapped resource, which is the power of middle school children
to guilt their adults into action because they did need
help. You know, they did need help.
(25:53):
And they just did it. And it's just amazed me.
It really has. And there's the organization
does some very cool things. When you raise a certain amount
of money, your name gets put on the well and the name of the
school, for example. And they send you the GPS
coordinates so you know exactly where your well is.
(26:13):
And they send you a photo of thepeople who are now using the
well and things like that. So it's very satisfying.
Wow. Yeah.
Did you ever think that that something like that could happen
from? Never.
Like I said, it was like, oh, they're going to see that one
person can make a difference, but never, never imagined it.
It was just so I actually have learned that, learned from them,
learned from my young readers. And my most recent novel is
(26:35):
called Gracie Under the Waves, which is about one of my
passions, which is snorkeling and the terrible danger that our
planet's coral reefs are in. So, you know, not necessarily
expecting anything, but hoping that they might have a similar
response to wanting to work on the environment.
(26:56):
If you could go back to the Linda Sue that was reading those
books at an early age and give her advice, knowing what you
know now, what would you tell her?
I don't, I don't know if I couldtell her this because it
wouldn't work, but it would be to say, you know, all the things
you're getting teased about and,and, and bullied about and the
(27:18):
things that make you so weird. They're going to make you a
fortune in the future. They're how are you going to
make a living in the future? How would you present that in
book form? Yeah, just to, to, to say, you
know, embrace who you are if youcan, you know, be true to
yourself. And I know a lot of people say
(27:38):
that and you do have to flex a little sometimes because the
world is the way it is, you know, but you, you just never
know. You never know the things that
make you weird now are are are going to be strengths when
you're older. When you hear Unapologetically
Creative, what does that mean toyou?
I think it means it's a value, right?
(28:01):
Because in our particular place and time, not everywhere in the
world and not every culture, right?
But in just say, 21st century America, creativity is not
always valued. It's not given the value that it
should be. Things like financial wealth or
status or other things are valued more than creativity.
(28:24):
So that people who have pursued the arts and other creative
stuff often feel like they either have to put it on the
down low or just not announce it, you know, or not be as proud
of it as they should be. So that's what unapologetically
creative would mean to me. You know, you, you hold your
head up high, you shout that youcollect Lego flowers and make
(28:48):
new ones all the time. Whatever it is, you be
unapologetic about it. Linda Sue Parks Journey shows us
how stories can reflect identity, connect cultures, and
even change lives. Whether it's through a novel
about 12th century Korean pottery or a book that sparks
(29:11):
children worldwide to raise millions for clean water in
South Sudan, her message is clear.
The very things that make us different can become our
greatest strengths, and when we give children books that
entertain, challenge, and inspire, we offer them a safe
space to practice life itself and the tools to imagine and
(29:33):
build a better world. Unapologetically.
Thanks for listening to Unapologetically Creative.
Be sure to follow the show. And stay tuned.
For more insightful conversations in the episodes
ahead to learn more about the Vermont College of Fine Arts,
visit vcfa.edu.
It is so remarkable to be a writer of books for young people
because you will never again love a book the way you do when
you're a child. You can ask people who are 70
and 80 and 90 years old what wasyour favorite book when you were
a kid and they remember. Welcome to Unapologetically
(00:27):
Creative, a podcast from the Vermont College of Fine Arts,
where we celebrate bold artistry, transformative
creativity, and the audacious voices shaping the future of the
arts. I'm your host, Andrew Ram Sammy,
and in this series we dive into honest, inspiring conversations
(00:48):
with artists who are pushing boundaries and redefining what
it means to create work that resonates and endures.
Linda Sue Park is an author and Newberry medalist whose books
have touched readers of all ages.
In this episode, she shares how her lifelong love of stories
began and how the absence of Asian and Korean American
(01:11):
characters shaped her path as a writer, and how her work has
gone on to inspire both readers and real world impact.
We'll talk about the movement for more diverse children's
books. The science of why reading
matters and why creativity, whether through words.
Art. Cooking or building is essential
(01:33):
for all of us. Linda Sue Park, welcome to
Unapologetically Creative. Thank you for having me and
thank you for that lovely introduction.
So Linda, you're not just a writer.
You're a writer who's actually delivering the type of impact
that that people would hope to see.
But typically that happens aftertheir their lifetime, their
(01:54):
natural lives, and you're actually doing this in real
time. So before we get to that, tell
us how did you start on your on this creative journey?
Well, the earliest I can go backto is that I was a reader, you
know, I, it was the Stone Age. We didn't have digital
entertainment, right? We had a television.
(02:15):
It was black and white. There were three channels, you
know, and it was always the newsor whatever.
Books were definitely my escapism, my entertainment, and
I love to read more than anything else.
So that was the start of it. Although when I was growing up,
there was no such thing as an author visit in the schools.
You know, I didn't know anyone who was an author.
(02:37):
My parents didn't know anyone who was an author.
And the books were just sort of the, you know, they're in the
library for me, right? It was a long time before I sort
of made the connection that realpeople wrote these things,
right? And for the longest time, what I
wanted to be when I grew up, if you'd have asked me, was a
reader. You know, what kind of job can
(02:57):
you have where you get to read all the time?
And I majored in English in college because you got to read
a lot. And after that I had a whole
bunch of what I call English major jobs, advertising, public
relations, journalism. I did everything that you could
think of that involved writing and yet never occurred to me to
write a book. And it wasn't until my late 30s.
(03:19):
So which is a lot later than a lot of people get started who
are interested in writing books.It wasn't until my late 30s that
I was, I was having, I had children of my own.
And I realized that when I was getting books for them, some of
them were new and some of them were books I had loved as a
child. And it was just this Eureka
(03:41):
moment for me, which is like, Ohmy God, this is what I want to
do. You know, that period in my life
where there was so much love forbooks, You know, I want to
relive that by writing some of my own.
So that was the impetus. Were there certain books that
you were that you would gravitate?
Towards in reading. It's really interesting because
when I was growing up, there were almost no books about
(04:02):
Asians or Asian Americans, right?
We had a couple that were reallyracist and people might know
them without even mentioning them.
So I was asked once by a magazine to list 3 influential
books from when I was a child. And I was like, oh, this is
going to be really hard. All right, I'm just going to
write the first three that come to mind, right?
Because I was not going to spenda lot of time mining the memory.
(04:24):
And I just wrote them down and Ibegan to write about them.
And all three of them were aboutbrown people or black people
because that's what I had for otherness.
I didn't have Asians, and I could not have articulated to
you that I need a book about somebody who's not mainstream
American. I couldn't have told you that at
age 9 or 10. But when those books, when I
(04:46):
wrote down those 3 titles, I waslike, Oh my gosh, I needed it
back then without even knowing that I needed it.
Do. You remember what those three
titles? Were I do unfortunately a lot
out of print. One of them was called I Juan de
Barrera and that is a Newberry winner.
So that's still in print. And it was about a black slave
who was the assistant to the great painter Velasquez and who
(05:08):
was eventually freed and became an incredible painter in his own
right. And then there was a book called
What Then Rahman about an Indianboy, meaning India, the country
who is the 1st in his family to learn how to read.
So that really resonated with me.
And the the third book called Roosevelt Grady, which was about
(05:31):
a black boy growing up in a migrant worker family who wanted
more than anyone anything else to have a library card, which he
couldn't have because he couldn't give a fixed residence
for his address. And because the library was such
a huge part of my life, I just, it broke my heart that this boy
couldn't have a library card. So again, there were just things
(05:55):
in those stories that that spoketo me in a way I could not have
told you why at the time, why they were my favorites, but I
reread them over and over and over again.
Still love those books. At what point did you realize
that there was something that was missing, that that lack of
representation and your identityhad not been displayed in what
you had been reading and what was available?
(06:16):
You know, you grew up in the shelter of your family and your
family is your family. They're just like they are.
And it's only when you go out into the world, right?
So I was the only Korean in my school, one of only very few
Asians and got teased mercilessly about my eyes and
about other things. So that's their your first
indication. OK.
You know, in my family, this is just what it is.
I'm just normal. But out in this world people
(06:39):
think there's something if not wrong with me than at least
different about me. Where did you grow up?
I grew up in a small town outside Chicago, and I knew that
I wanted to explore what it meant to be Korean when I began
writing for young people. And from the response of the of,
of the outside, oh, these are the first books I've ever seen
that have Korean characters. Oh, these, you know, I, I, it
(07:01):
was not an activist impulse thatmade me write those books.
It was personal. I wanted to know about more and
more about Korea and about Korea's history because my first
four books are Korean historicals.
So I was writing for, you know, to, to learn more for myself.
But the response was, oh, my goodness, you know, I, I've
needed these books for my children.
So that it was again, an outsideimpulse that made me think, oh,
(07:24):
maybe there is more to this thanjust satisfying my own personal
curiosity. And then much later in my
career, I'm going to say it was 15 years later, the We Need
Diverse Books movement began in children's books, started as a
hashtag on what was then Twitter, and it changed the
(07:47):
publishing industry, the children's publishing industry.
A woman named Ellen O, who is also Korean American, and
several of her colleagues who were of all stripes, began a
movement saying we need more books to represent all children,
all readers. And since then, since 2014 and
(08:08):
2015, they incorporated as a nonprofit.
The numbers have changed dramatically.
There are now many more books, many more books for both, for
children who want to see themselves reflected in stories.
And in a way, I think even more importantly for people who are
in the mainstream or in the majority to see that all of
(08:30):
these lives merit literature that, you know, we're limited in
so long to thinking. I, I mean, I just like, I guess
being Korean is just not important enough to be in books.
Is that what it is? How come there's never anything?
I guess we just don't matter, you know, and you don't say
that, but if it's year after year after year that you never
(08:50):
see yourself reflected in a book, the message gets, oh, you
know, your story doesn't really matter, right?
And so this great change that that's happened over the past
eight or nine years, I would say, where we're not done yet,
we have a lot of work still to do, but where many more children
can say, hey, I am important enough for people who look like
(09:11):
me are important enough for literature.
I mean, Korean culture in the mainstream probably right now is
like on that meteoric continuingto rise, rise, rise, rise.
But Korean culture also has beendepicted in some very not so
nice ways, right? And I think the most searing
image that I have in my head is how what happened during Rodney
(09:34):
King and the here in LA and whathappened to Korean store owners
and that whole depiction of, of,of what it meant to be a Korean
store owner during that time in the mainstream.
So how do you balance all of that from the meteoric rise of
like all the K pop stuff that's happening to back to that kind
(09:55):
of Seminole moment in history for Korean American culture and
what happened here in Los Angeles in the USI?
Think one person can't balance it?
So what we need is 10 or 20 or 30,000 stories about everybody.
OK, but just I'll talk about Korean, American or Korean
because that's what I know. So if you have that number, then
(10:16):
there's no one image that makes.That's what's Korean American.
You think about what white children have, what mainstream
children, they have millions of stories and books to choose
from. And therefore nobody ever says
that's the white story, right? Because we know that's a
multiplicity of experience. So that's what every
marginalized community needs. They need that many stories so
(10:40):
that there isn't a single image,which is how you get the
stereotype and how you get the hate and how you get all of
those things you need, you know,you need quantity matters.
We want quality too, of course. But but the number of stories
that you need, you know, so somepeople will say, oh, I don't
know, you know, so and so has already written this kind of
(11:01):
book about whatever this kind ofethnicity, I'm like, you write
yours, it will be a little different.
It'll be different enough. And we need 10,000 of them.
So, you know, that's what that'swhat I would say to, for
example, young Korean Americans who are starting out right, you
know. Would you hate it if I said?
That it's kind of like every recipe for kimchi is different.
(11:24):
No, that would be very, very true, right?
Right. That every way that, you know,
I'm sure you were taught one wayand there's another way and
there's another way, and there'sa billion ways probably to make
kimchi, right? But the basic Most of them are
delicious, and most of them. Are not all.
But when you know, when people talk about your culture and it
and it, especially in what you're doing specifically with
(11:46):
children's literature, what are you hoping that specifically
within children's literature, you'll be able to address that
perhaps in other genres that arenot children's literature that
you can do? That's a really great question.
A lot of my work young people encounter in school because I
(12:07):
don't write the very popular kind of book that a kid will go
into a bookstore and ask for themselves, right.
A single Shard is about 12th century Korean pottery.
No kid goes into a bookstore saying can I have a book on 12th
century Korean pottery? So they're introduced to my work
through caring teachers and librarians.
That's how they they meet my work.
(12:28):
So I think that part of what needs to happen is the adult
gate gatekeepers. They need to be open to all
sorts of stories, and that oftenmeans stories they're not
familiar with. Of course, teachers want to
teach what they loved, right? But what they loved in their
childhoods has broadened considerably, and they need to
(12:50):
be open to using books that theyare perhaps perhaps were not
beloved by themselves because they didn't exist at the time,
right? So what I think books can do for
a kid is, and there's brain science on this, that when we
read, different parts of our brain are activated than when
we're looking at a screen or looking at something that's
(13:11):
moving. And that reading is such a
complicated skill, OK? It's a really difficult skill.
And that's why it awakens the deep thinking parts of our
brains. So creativity, imagination,
innovation, critic, deep critical thinking happen in
those areas that are nurtured byreading.
(13:33):
And I do worry about that a lot.I worry that if kids are going
so much to screens that that those parts of their brains are
going to atrophy and that that will make a difference to us,
that we won't have the deep thinking that we need for for
problem solving, you know, So I want my books to entertain kids
(13:54):
'cause if the kid is not entertained, they'll put it
down. You know, I don't want it to be
medicine. I want them to love the stories
and to be entertained by them. But at the same time, my hope is
that if they like my book, they look up at the end and they say,
can I get another book like thatthat doesn't have to be mine,
just another. That they will read more and
(14:14):
keep reading because we're leaving them a mess of a world
and they are going to need thosedeep thinking brain cells to fix
the mess that we've left them. I heard you talk about brain
science in your workshop either today or yesterday.
What should writers be aware of or cognizant of when you say
(14:35):
things like that when you bring in brain science into your
discussions? I I want art to be less mystical
for people. I think that creating things is
such an important part of the human experience, no matter what
you do, and that creating is howwe've survived and become the
(14:59):
Lords of the universe that we'd like to think we are.
And so that everybody needs to find a way to create in their
lives. And often we think of the, the
high arts or the Fine Arts, you know, visual arts, painting and
writing and music and dance and things like that.
But there are so many other waysto be creative.
(15:20):
And it's often a matter of discipline and technique and
tools. And that is where your brain
science comes in. Not a matter of, oh, the muse
visited me or oh, I have this innate talent.
I have this gift. OK, fine.
(15:41):
Go, go, go play with your gift. You know, I want everybody to
discover something that they cando that is usually a hand and
brain thing that they can create.
Cooking counts, you know, woodworking counts, gardening
counts, things where you use both your body and your brain
(16:02):
and as I said, off in your handsto create something that wasn't
there before. So it's incredibly satisfying.
And it's how how quote, UN quote, human progress gets made,
you know, So I would like it to.I would like everybody to feel.
Yeah, I can be creative. That's what I hope.
(16:23):
And again, often for many adults, it's too late or that's
not for me, you know. But kids are innately creative.
And what you want to do is not kill it, you know, I don't know
what when it happens, it happensdifferent ages.
But they say, oh, I'm in. I'm in math and science, or I'm
(16:43):
an engineer or I'm a business person.
I'm not creative. Everybody can be creative, no
matter what their field is, whether it's a hobby, an
avocation, or whether it's in the field themselves.
People who we think of are geniuses.
No matter what their field, they're creative.
What do you say to the person that is listening to this and
has had that part of that brain of theirs atrophy because
(17:07):
because of what's happened in our society trying to kill
creativity and to stunt it and to shut it down?
Or to, you know, Abab left, right up, you know, up, down to
like get to it. What do you say to folks who are
you, who are standing in front of you, who are in your
workshops, who are middle-aged or even older and just aren't
(17:27):
kids anymore? Yeah, yeah, it's true.
Well, it's why I choose to work with kids, because there's so
much hope, you know, there's so much potential.
But it's also true of everyone. And I always say, you know what?
What are you passionate about? What do you love?
You know, start there and start small.
You know, you don't have to build a tree house if you're if,
(17:48):
if you decide that that working with wood is something you love.
You know, every there's, there'sjust you know, I did a lecture
today on how my writing happens in 12 minute increments.
OK, I write for 12 minutes at a time because I have 12 minutes,
you know, any at any point in the day.
I am very big on breaking down atask till it's very small and
(18:12):
not scary. And I think that that if you
can, whatever it is you want to do, if you can just take and
make it small and make it doable.
And that gives you that satisfaction and the serotonin
in your brain from the satisfaction that makes you want
to do more. And so that's that's how it
begins. Yeah.
I mean that's, it's almost like you are meeting people where
(18:35):
they're at, right? Yeah.
In those 12 minute little increments, maybe it was 24
minutes a couple of years ago and 36.
Minutes. No, it's true.
I can't. I I had to stumble onto 12,
right? Yes.
Right, You have not only kids have your own, but you only, you
also have grandkids now that arewithin your world.
(18:55):
Are you writing books now with them in mind?
Well, who do you write for? What are you thinking about when
you write and what is that process?
When I'm writing a story, it tends to come out what we call a
middle grade novel, a novel for about 3rd through 7th grade,
ages 7 to 12. OK, because that was my golden
age of reading. So the pace and emotions and
(19:20):
themes, whatever you want to call of of that kind of story is
what's strongest in my brain. So I guess that would mean that
I am writing for the child that I was if I'm accessing that part
of my brain. And yet I don't think about her
either. You know, I have a story I want
to tell. I have a character who has a
problem and the way that they are going to see their way
(19:43):
through the problem is a way that I would do myself, which I
think is maybe like a child would do it in that once again,
I'm going to do small, I'm goingto do small things.
I don't, I, I, I don't think I'ma great big picture person.
I have to see what's in front ofme and fix that and then or
(20:04):
whatever and then go on to the next whatever little thing.
And it's what I tell kids a lot.I said, if you have a really big
problem, try to make it smaller and see if you can handle that
one part of it. And I think of the especially
that age group. Middle grade novels as a safe
place to practice life. OK, We all need all the practice
(20:26):
we can get because life is hard and it's messy.
And in a book, they can see how someone else faces a problem and
they can practice along with that character.
Oh, that's what I would do. Or, Oh no, that's not what I
would do. And it's a safe place to
practice life. And so I guess in my stories,
that is what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to give young readers
(20:48):
a a Safeway to practice and develop skills that are going to
help them later in their lives. But you also in your books, you
you bring in a lot of historicalcontext, right in both a a
single Shard and a long walk to water.
They're not just like Tom's going to school and he's got to
get past the bullies and like it.
(21:08):
I mean, you're like you're you know, it's this is complexity to
this. How do you balance that kind of
depth between historical, emotional and cultural?
And you're dealing with three toseven, you know, people in the
third grade or the 7th grade. First of all, they're like
(21:28):
sponges. You know they just suck up
information, right? I, I often find that they can
grasp things sometimes quicker than adults can.
Certain certain concepts, right?Because there's nothing
preconceived in the way, right? So if I'm writing a book that's
set in a S Sudanese refugee camp, they have 0 experience.
Most of us have 0 experience with that, but they haven't even
(21:49):
seen the news on it, right? So that the information that I
give them is it can be at a basic level because it's their
first exposure to it, right? And so I think about in that,
that that book in particular, A Long Walk to Water, has some
very tough subject matter in it.You know, it's a really hard
book. It's a book about war, right?
(22:10):
And so there are ways that you elite the violence and the
horrible graphicness. You end a chapter and the
character learns the next day that his friend is gone.
OK, so you you trust your readerto fill in that somehow that
character met a terrible end andyou don't write about it in
detail, you know, the way you might in another kind of story,
(22:32):
right? But because historical fiction
set in Korea, a story set in South Sudan, because my settings
are often so unfamiliar to youngpeople, I do introduce some
pretty basic things. And then I just leave it.
(22:54):
And what I'm trying to show there is that historically,
around the world right now, in extreme circumstances, we have,
as Maya Angelou would say, more in common than not.
And so if you can read a book about a boy in 12th century
Korea who seems to have a completely different life than
yours and yet can still recognize his frustration at
(23:18):
things, right, It's, you know, astep towards connection.
Hopefully that will translate toreal people, not just
characters. You mentioned a long walk to
water and that inspired a movement and inspired
fundraising. It's raised 10s of thousands of
dollars to. 4 million. I'm sorry, $4,000,000 to support
(23:41):
Sudanese refugees and communities.
How does it? Feel to see your.
Work create such a tangible impact in the world.
I totally feel like I can't takecredit for it.
First of all, my husband's a journalist, so he wrote many
stories about this young man named Salvadut, and his story
was so incredible that I wanted a version for young people.
(24:03):
So I used his journalism storiesto write this book.
That's how I did the research, so my husband deserves a ton of
credit for that. What's your husband's name?
His name is Ben Dobbin. He's a retired journalist now,
but if you Google him you can find his stories about Salva.
So then the book made it into classrooms and libraries.
And what I thought I was writingwas that one person can make a
(24:27):
different story. You know that you can.
Yeah. Right.
OK. That's not what happened.
You know, I just wanted kids to be inspired, Right?
And instead, I was just flabbergasted.
They went to their adults, and they said, we want to help.
We want to help people like NIA and Salva.
What can we do? So they did walkathons.
They did penny wishing wells. They held bake sales.
(24:49):
And Salva has an organization called Water for South Sudan.
And what he does is he takes that money and he drills clean
water wells all over South Sudan.
And so these young people have raised over the years more than
$4 million. There are at least 400, probably
more by now, wells now in South Sudan being used by people who
(25:09):
have never had clean water before.
And those young people are literally saving people's lives
because there are many babies who die because of dirty water.
And now that they have clean water, they don't die.
And I had no idea that the readers would respond like that.
They taught me, you know, we think of young people as being
(25:31):
relatively powerless. And these young people have just
been so amazing and have made merealize that we have this huge
untapped resource, which is the power of middle school children
to guilt their adults into action because they did need
help. You know, they did need help.
(25:53):
And they just did it. And it's just amazed me.
It really has. And there's the organization
does some very cool things. When you raise a certain amount
of money, your name gets put on the well and the name of the
school, for example. And they send you the GPS
coordinates so you know exactly where your well is.
(26:13):
And they send you a photo of thepeople who are now using the
well and things like that. So it's very satisfying.
Wow. Yeah.
Did you ever think that that something like that could happen
from? Never.
Like I said, it was like, oh, they're going to see that one
person can make a difference, but never, never imagined it.
It was just so I actually have learned that, learned from them,
learned from my young readers. And my most recent novel is
(26:35):
called Gracie Under the Waves, which is about one of my
passions, which is snorkeling and the terrible danger that our
planet's coral reefs are in. So, you know, not necessarily
expecting anything, but hoping that they might have a similar
response to wanting to work on the environment.
(26:56):
If you could go back to the Linda Sue that was reading those
books at an early age and give her advice, knowing what you
know now, what would you tell her?
I don't, I don't know if I couldtell her this because it
wouldn't work, but it would be to say, you know, all the things
you're getting teased about and,and, and bullied about and the
(27:18):
things that make you so weird. They're going to make you a
fortune in the future. They're how are you going to
make a living in the future? How would you present that in
book form? Yeah, just to, to, to say, you
know, embrace who you are if youcan, you know, be true to
yourself. And I know a lot of people say
(27:38):
that and you do have to flex a little sometimes because the
world is the way it is, you know, but you, you just never
know. You never know the things that
make you weird now are are are going to be strengths when
you're older. When you hear Unapologetically
Creative, what does that mean toyou?
I think it means it's a value, right?
(28:01):
Because in our particular place and time, not everywhere in the
world and not every culture, right?
But in just say, 21st century America, creativity is not
always valued. It's not given the value that it
should be. Things like financial wealth or
status or other things are valued more than creativity.
(28:24):
So that people who have pursued the arts and other creative
stuff often feel like they either have to put it on the
down low or just not announce it, you know, or not be as proud
of it as they should be. So that's what unapologetically
creative would mean to me. You know, you, you hold your
head up high, you shout that youcollect Lego flowers and make
(28:48):
new ones all the time. Whatever it is, you be
unapologetic about it. Linda Sue Parks Journey shows us
how stories can reflect identity, connect cultures, and
even change lives. Whether it's through a novel
about 12th century Korean pottery or a book that sparks
(29:11):
children worldwide to raise millions for clean water in
South Sudan, her message is clear.
The very things that make us different can become our
greatest strengths, and when we give children books that
entertain, challenge, and inspire, we offer them a safe
space to practice life itself and the tools to imagine and
(29:33):
build a better world. Unapologetically.
Thanks for listening to Unapologetically Creative.
Be sure to follow the show. And stay tuned.
For more insightful conversations in the episodes
ahead to learn more about the Vermont College of Fine Arts,
visit vcfa.edu.
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The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.