On November fourth American University students and community members had the unique opportunity to hear from writer Jung Yun. Yun, a Baltimore-based writer and professor at George Washington University, spoke about her newest novel All the World Can Hold and her overall writing process while answering questions from Rhonda Zimlich and audience members.
After her introduction, Yun started off the evening with a summary of her newest novel, All the World Can Hold. This novel takes place on a cruise ship five days after the travesty of 9/11. Some of the inspiration for this unique setting and time period came from her own experience. Yun was actually on a cruise five days after 9/11. The novel follows three point of view characters, Franny, Douge, and Lucy. Yun shared that something initially challenging about the novel was that she had to find reasons for three different people with three different backgrounds to each be on the ship at this specific moment in time. Though she definitely overcame that hurdle.
Following some context of the book and her inspiration, Yun read a few brief excerpts from each point of view character. She began with Franny, a wealthy New York lawyer on board for her mothers 70th birthday celebration. As the novel unravels, readers learn about the stressful family dynamic Franny navigates and her experience on ground zero during 9/11. Next, the audience heard from Douge, a washed up actor who starred in an old television show that took place on the very cruise ship they are aboard now. He is dealing with a lot of remorse from his drug usage and unkind actions in the past and is confronted with them during this story while at a reunion for his old show. The third character, Lucy, is a graduate school student whose roommate invited her at the last minute to join the cruise. While on the cruise, the moral complications of two mismatched roommates come to light. Yun also mentioned how she was intentional about giving each character problems that the setting, a cruise ship in international waters, forced them to confront.
Yun then sat down with Zimlich to have a conversation about the novel. During this discussion, Yun shared that she had been working on this piece off and on for fifteen years. Since this writing is the piece that drew the most from her own lived experiences, she said this was something she had to take time away from and then return in order to not feel too drained. On the flip side, she spoke about how fun it was for her to write chapters from Douge’s point of view. She claimed she was always excited to get to a Douge chapter as it contained more humor than others did. When crafting his character, she said she composited different people she knew or had heard about to bring him to life. They also discussed another one of Yun’s books, O Beautiful and how that took place where Yun grew up, North Dakota. The conversation then flipped to focus on craft and Yun described how she starts her stories with an image or a feeling, sometimes a main character, and then writes into the idea. For character work, she will write pages and pages that don’t fit into the novel but help her as an author to better understand who her characters truly are.
After their discussion, the audience members had a chance to voice some of their questions. Audience members asked an array of questions about Yun's novel, craft choices, and writing process. One such inquiry asked about her revision process. Before responding Yun emphasized that she never recommends her specific process to others. When she writes, she will start off by writing around five pages. Then, before adding five more, she goes back and revisits the first five pages. This continues, adding small page numbers after each time rereading and revising everything she has written that comes before it. She concluded her response by emphasizing to young writers that there is no one size fits all for any part of the writing process. While that bit of advice took her some time to fully understand, she wanted to emphasize that just because you do things differently than other writers doesn’t mean anyone is doing something wrong. Overall the night was filled with engaging conversation, creative craft details, and interesting insights into Yun’s novel.
