An Interview with Gina Chung

Gina Chung’s debut short story collection, Green Frog, bursts with heart and heat. Whether following a vengeance-driven kumiho in Human Hearts, or a grief-stricken mother in Attachment Processes, Chung deftly shows us the soft underbelly hiding within us all. A few weeks ago, staff editor Kira Compton spoke over the phone with Gina Chung about literary community, the animal kingdom, and the art of the short story collection. 

IR: I wanted to start with talking about the short story collection itself. I’m very curious about story order—what story we open with, what story we end with, the title story. How was that process for you? Did you know right off the bat you wanted to name it Green Frog?

GC: I knew fairly early on in the process of assembling the collection that I wanted to title it Green Frog. My good friend, the writer Vanessa Chan, suggested it after reading an early version of the title story, because that idea of the green frog, which comes from a Korean folktale, was so prominent in it. I liked the idea of titling the collection after it because that story encapsulates, for me, a lot of the themes in the book as a whole, including the question of what we owe to ourselves vs. what we owe the ones we love.

I think a lot about story order, as someone who both writes short stories and also just really loves the art of the collection. The process for putting together the order of the stories in Green Frog was very collaborative. Caitlin, my editor, was the one who suggested opening with How to Eat Your Own Heart. As a writer, I like to toggle back and forth across the scale between realism and the surreal, and that story is very overt in  its use of magical elements. While some of the other stories in the collection are more true-to-life, I liked the idea of leading with this one—like, here's a collection in which these kinds of things can and do  happen in the worlds of these various characters.

The last story in the book is The Love Song of the Mexican Free-Tailed Bat, which is actually one of the oldest short stories in this collection. I started that story during the first year of my MFA program at the New School. All my stories are, of course, personal to me, but this one deals with coming to terms with one’s  anger as a woman, which is something I have grappled a lot with in my personal life. The way the character in that story experiences grief and rage is mediated through her deceased father's legacy, which include his own history of anger and his interest in bats, as a biology professor. The story knits together themes that recur throughout the collection, like grief,  intergenerational trauma, and the things we inherit from our family. And  animals are  pretty prominent throughout the collection as well, so it felt right to  end on that note.

IR: I’m glad you brought up the interest in animals, since I was going to ask you about it. Animals show up in a lot of your stories. It can be super overt like Mantis, but it can be more subtle too. One of my personal favorites in the collection was Names for Fireflies, which is pretty realist, but then you still use animal-centered imagery, like bug bites and floods of fireflies, to describe young love. What compels you to write so much about animals?

GC: You know,  it's funny because I didn't realize that I was writing all these things related to animals until trusted readers in my life, including friends and teachers from my MFA program, pointed it out. They were like oh, you know, a lot of animals pop up in your work     .

That was also part of the decision to title the collection Green Frog—although , ironically, Green Frog is one of the few stories that doesn’t feature an actual animal.

In terms of why I’m drawn to writing about animals, though, I think it's because animals keep us honest. Unlike a person, an animal  cannot lie to you. It cannot pretend to be anything other than what it is.

I also find it interesting that we humans are animals, but that we don't think of ourselves as such. We think of ourselves as being above or outside of nature or the animal kingdom, even though we are all part of it. Some of that arrogance is really baked into how we're encouraged to see the world, this idea that everything exists to serve us. But actually, we are just one very, very small part of an ancient series of systems.


IR: So, I stalked you a bit while prepping for this interview, and I've never been more jealous in my life than when I found out you wrote Sea Change in just a few months. I think September to December? In that same interview, you mentioned that you were an outliner with Sea Change. I'm curious how the process is different for you with short stories. Do they come as quickly? Did you outline the stories within Green Frog the way you did Sea Change?

GC: First, I want to say that working on Sea Change was a very anomalous experience. Now that I'm in the process of working on another novel, it’s already proving to be a much longer process. A lot of Sea Change was a weird alchemical process of being in the thick of 2020 and not really having any other obligations outside of my day job at the time. That initial draft was kind of a sprint.

I do outline for longer projects, but I always say that I have to have the outline, even if it's just to deviate from it, and I often do. Once a project starts to feel viable to me, I can usually predict where it's going to end up. Like, if I know I’m going to set out from home to a given destination, I know I’m going to get there, but I’m not always sure how I’m going to get there.

For short stories, though? I mean, all writing is a weird blend between intuitiveness and being very structured and strategic. But I would say short stories feel a little bit more intuitive to me because they're shorter. A short story can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months or the better part of a year, or longer. A lot of my writing in general comes from an image or a question I have, and then depending on how much time and real estate I think I need, that determines whether it's going to be a short story or a novel.

IR: Did Sea Change start as a short story, if you don't mind me asking?

GC: It did, actually. I had a very rough version of the first chapter, and I brought it to my writing group at the time. My friends were like, “You know, respectfully, you left a lot of questions unanswered. You could expand them into a book if you wanted.” That was sort of what gave me the courage to try and turn it into a novel.

IR: That actually leads me into a question I really wanted to ask you. Seeing the way you talk about writing and the community, mentorship seems to be really important to you. You bring up old mentors all the time, and then also work with Kundiman, which is such a great literary organization. I’d love to hear your thoughts on how taking on such an active role in the literary community helps you as a writer.

GC: My  literary community is everything to me. Being in community with other writers is so important not just for mutual inspiration and encouragement, but also being able to share practical advice, commiserate with one another about the very specific things writers have to worry about, etc. If I start complaining about a wayward character or something like that to anyone else, it sounds insane, since these are people I just made up in my head. Fellow writers, though, they're gonna get it. They understand how these imaginary characters can feel so real and are real to you.

In terms of the work I do at Kundiman, it’s been so cool to be part of the day-to-day operations of an organization that is really centered around  this idea of community and writers finding one another. I see it every day in my workmanaging many of the writing programs and events for the organization. People are always  looking out for one another, letting each other know about new writing or submission opportunities, shouting out one another’s accomplishments.

Literary community is such a beautiful thing, especially since the work of writing can be so lonely and isolating otherwise. But it really doesn't have to be.

IR: One last question: any advice you might have for younger writers?

GC: I have two pieces of advice and they sort of seem to contradict each other, but I think it’s important to hold both of these things.

Firstly, don't compare yourself. Don't compare your journey to other people's journeys.

Everyone's pathway to publication or representation or any other literary milestone is very different. If you hear 10 different writers talk about the process of getting their first books published, you'll hear 10 different stories.

With that being said, don’t be shy about talking to people, listening to other people’s stories and trajectories, and asking questions (as long as it’s done kindly and respectfully, of course).  A lot of the work we do as writers is weird and private and creative. But then you can go out, talk to other writers, get their thoughts, and hear what they have to say about their own experiences and their relationship to their craft and to being a writer in the world. And that can help so much in figuring out what your own journey could look like, and what might work best for you.

Purchase Green Frog here, or anywhere books are sold.

Photo Credit S.M. Sukardi