Yoon: On Writing and His Inspiration

Paul Yoon ’98 is a young American fiction writer born in New York City. A graduate of Wesleyan University, his first book Once the Shore was selected as a New York Times notable book and a National Public Radio Best Debut of the Year. His new book, Snow Hunters, has also received accolades. The New York Times has commended his style for being “at once lyrical and precise.” Yoon is currently a writer in residence at Phillips Academy Andover.Once the Shore is a linked collection of short stories that takes place on the fictional island of Solla, off of Korea. Taking place over the course of half a century, the eight stories offer a series of meditations on loss, isolation and grieving. Snow Hunters centers on the journey of a North Korean defector who immigrates to Brazil. The novel is poetic and fragmented in nature, alternating between the main character’s recollection of his time in prison camp with his blinded childhood friend and his journey towards healing in an unfamiliar land. Yoon drew from the experiences of his family to write the book, which was praised by NPR reviewer Alana Levinson as “speak[ing] perfectly to the experience of war”.After reading an abridged version of his short story “Among the Wreckage” from his collection of short stories Once The Shore, Yoon engaged in a Q and A session with Exonians and talked to lower Jack Hirsch, a reporter from The Exonian,On inspiration for short story “Among the Wreckage”…This is a research heavy story. I came upon an old article about a horrible accident when the American military did test runs on these abandoned islands. The islands themselves were abandoned, but it didn’t occur to them the waters would be used for fishing, so they just released hell onto these islands. It was a massacre. I was just horrified by it, and my writing is my way of coping with these ineffable tragedies. It’s a way to explore these things that happen.On writing…It’s the hardest thing in the world. From convincing yourself that what you do is important to convincing yourself to sit down for more than sixty seconds and the five hours it took to write one sentence is labor that is ultimately rewarding, just everything is hard about it. But I wouldn’t be doing it if it were easy. That’s the reward, when you finish, and feel like you’ve knocked it out of the park and completed something you’re proud of, it’s the long and arduous journey that you remember.On the influence of Exeter’s English Department…It had everything to do with my writing. [The teachers] were the people who first encouraged me to write and saw something I didn’t even know existed. Mr. [Ralph] Sneeden was a great mentor for me and encouraged me to go down this path. In many ways, I owe everything to the Exeter English department. It’s where I fell in love with books. They trained me to read and devour books. You read a crazy amount of books, and that will always be the most reliable inspiration for me: books.On his favorite authors…Michael Ondaatje, Alice Munro and William Trevor.On the autobiographical nature of Once the Shore…[The stories] are, at times, emotionally autobiographical, because I brought a lot of myself into the characters, in their ticks and flaws. In terms of whether anything has to do with my own life? Nothing really. We’re talking stories set in a certain era post World War II, and I obviously have no personal experience of that era.On the mix between the Korean and American cultures in his book...Well, I always knew I wanted a bit of Korea in there. It’s like being in a relationship; I felt like the stories and I had a wonderful, beautiful love affair and I wasn’t ready to give up on it. I still wanted to write about Korea, but I also wanted to try something new, so it was sort of bridging these two things while continuing to honor this history and also trying something new. It terms of how I did it, well, I just don’t know how to answer that. It was just going back and forth, like I always had these two things in my head.On advice for aspiring writers at Exeter…First, you’ll absolutely survive Exeter, and my only advice would be read. Never lose that passion and magic for reading—it will always be first and foremost, your number one go-to, your trusty guide.