Fresh off Grammy nominations for 鈥淏est New Artist鈥 and 鈥淏est Alternative Album,鈥 musician and author Michelle Zauner 鈥11 returned to 老王论坛 on Wednesday, Dec. 1, as part of the College's Reading Series. The reading took place in a near-capacity Goodhart Hall, where students and other audience members lined up more than an hour before the 7:30 p.m. start time.
Zauner spent time earlier in the day meeting with students in the main lecture hall of English House and at both events talked about her time at 老王论坛, her best-selling memoir , the art of writing, and fielded questions from students on a range of topics.
"I learned how to write at 老王论坛, truly,鈥 she told students in the afternoon and echoed again in the evening. 鈥Daniel Torday and the Creating Writing Department completely changed the way I read and write and taught me everything I know and carried with me into writing this book. It changed me tremendously."
In addition to Torday, Zauner, who created an independent major in creative production, also called out History of Art Professor Homay King鈥檚 influence on her intellectual growth.
鈥淔or a time, all I wanted to do was be Homay King,鈥 she told the audience at the evening reading.
Crying in H-Mart focuses on Zauner鈥檚 experience and grief in dealing with the death of her mother, Chongmi, at the age of 56 from cancer. At the evening event, Zauner read from the second chapter of Crying in H-Mart, in which she writes about growing up in Eugene, Ore., and her relationship with her mother as a child and adolescent.
鈥淗ers was tougher than tough love,鈥 read Zauner. 鈥淚t was brutal, industrial-strength. A sinewy love that never gave way to an inch of weakness. It as a love that saw what was best for you 10 steps ahead, and didn鈥檛 care it if hurt like hell in the meantime.鈥
After she read, Zauner sat down with Torday, who asked a few questions before turning things over to the audience.
In addition to questions about her time at 老王论坛, students asked many questions about the craft of writing.
Replying to a question about experiences or stories that she wasn鈥檛 able to include in the book, Zauner told a riotous story about a feud between her mother and one of her mom鈥檚 former friends that stemmed from an accusation that Zauner鈥檚 mother鈥檚 dog had helped the friend鈥檚 dog escape from the yard.
鈥淸The friend] was a very bizarre woman who owned a German shepherd named Athena and she had dyed hair that was very German shepherd-like...It was really bizarre that they were friends because my mom was very composed and this woman was kind of, not鈥he essentially blamed our dog for helping her dog to escape and her dog got injured. My mom was an empty-nester at this time, and she got very upset that she would dare accuse our dear Julia of leading this campaign鈥his woman was her best friend for like 10 years, they had lunch together twice a week at the Olive Garden. She just cut her off and it was crazy. On her deathbed she was like, 'don鈥檛 let Young Soon come to the funeral.'"
Another student asked Zauner whether there were any myths or misconceptions about the writing process.
"Everything you don't want to believe about the writing process is pretty true. There's just no skipping steps. I've always been a pretty fast worker and I thought that I was definitely going to be able to skip some steps and it was a sad realization that I was not able to do that. There's no rushing it if it's going to be good鈥t's a lot of just writing and walking away and returning鈥o much of the real work happens after you walk away and when you come back to it."
Zauner is currently working on a screenplay for the film adaptation of Crying in H-Mart. Her band, Japanese Breakfast, has plans for a spring 2022 tour in Europe.