R. O. Kwon 권오경

@rokwon.bsky.social

27065 Followers 1285 Following

nationally bestselling novels Exhibit & The Incendiaries • coedited Kink • Lambda Literary Prize www.ro-kwon.com

Ingrid’s current writing songs on repeat 1. Maxime Denuc, "Infinite End" 2. Oliver Coates, "Backprint Radiation" 3. Raul Refree "Rompe Cinta" 4. Cello Octet Amsterdam, Arvo Part, "Summa" 5. Phillipp Rumsch, "No Hands Unstained' 6. Martin Brugger, "Downward Curving” 7. nonkeen, "The Invention Mother"
R. O. Kwon writing desk essentials 1. Laptop 2. Hand sanitizer in case I need to touch my face or eyes while writing 3. Nothing ever on the walls 4. Lamp I turn on only while I’m writing fiction 5. Quart-sized Mason jar for room-temperature water, any smaller is too small 6. Coffee mug made by a friend, used only while writing fiction, plus a straw 7. Noise-canceling earphones 8. Chair where I can rest my feet 9. Blackout blinds, I don't want to see sunlight while I'm writing 10. Space heater below my desk, San Francisco is usually cold 11. Small najeonchilgi box—lacquered mother-of-pearl—from Moonji, my Korean publisher. Inside: pens, lip balm, mother’s jade rings 12. A book that’s helping my novel: in this case, SECOND SPACE by Czeslaw Milosz, tr. with Robert Hass
screenshots of info at the link
a gorgeous very large white dog putting his head on a pant-clad leg
We are targeting these 7 Hilton Minneapolis locations with confirmed ICE presence: Home2Suites by Hilton, Minneapolis University, 2808 Univeristy Ave SE. (612) 473-4662 Hilton Minneapolis Airport, 3800 American Blvd E (952) 854-2100 Hampton Inn Eagan, 3000 Eagandale Place, (651) 688-3343 Hilton Garden Inn, Minneapolis Airport-MOA, 1601 American Blvd E (952) 854-1687 Home2Suites Egan, 3939 Cedar Grove Pkwy (612) 567-5810 Home2Suites Brooklyn Park, 9490 W Broadway (763) 567-5810 Doubletree Roseville, 2540 Cleveland Ave (651) 636-4567
I had the idea that the world’s so full of pain it must sometimes make a kind of singing Or: I made a plan for January & much of it fell apart I had a plan for January. Since I had relatively minimal obligations for the month, or so I thought, I would set aside time for a home residency. I first did this a year ago: if & when I have the great luck of a stretch of days or weeks to myself, I follow most of the rules I observe at an artists’ residency. I turn ascetic. I tell friends I can’t hang out for a while & explain why.
text from the app linked, including “stop ice’s aggressive attacks on immigrants & citizens”
The Ministry of Words Info Session 1/9, 5pm PT / 8pm ET poetry & screenwriting, Fatimah Asghar fiction, R. O. Kwon creative nonfiction, Ingrid Rojas Contreras
I force myself to celebrate things Or: sometimes I try to inhabit a joy I’m not capable of feeling, & sometimes it helps R. O. Kwon January 2, 2026
graphic with class information available at theministryofwords.com
Spending this day alone with my dead Or: on loving what’s absent when its presence is gone In progress by R. O. Kwon rokwon.substack.com picture of a glass of whisky + shrimp-sea bass dim sum
gejang & kimchi & rice in black bowls and dishes
handol roofs white with snow in seoul, people in the distance
Who We Are The Ministry of Words’ classes will be taught by Fatimah Asghar, Ingrid Rojas Contreras, and R. O. Kwon. We have taught at places including Stanford University, Saint Mary’s College, Scripps College, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Tin House Writers Workshop, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Community of Writers, and more.
The Ministry of Words Introducing a new teaching collective From award-winning writers Fatimah Asghar, Ingrid Rojas Contreras, & R. O. Kwon Offering generative & workshop-based classes in fiction, poetry, & nonfiction starting Feb. 5 Apply by Jan. 20 theministryofwords.com
image with info about a holiday party on 12/3, all info at the link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/zyzzyva-litquake-holiday-party-tickets-1762020293129
R. O. Kwon and Carter Sickels Win the 2025 Jim Duggins Prize for PhD Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize
I fell wildly, urgently in love with Gala Porras-Kim’s work in a Seoul museum, where I saw a replica she made of a sarcophagus held in the British Museum. Taking seriously the beliefs of ancient Egyptians, who built doors facing east to let the dead see the sunrise, Porras-Kim proposed that the British Museum turn their sarcophagus east and wrote a letter explaining why. “Since we cannot yet be certain of the mechanics of the afterlife,” she wrote, “we could consider the perpetual plans of the persons under your charge as a guide for their care and, as such, in their display.”
Interview For the Artist Gala Porras- Kim, Sculpture Is a Portal to the Afterlife By R.O. Kwon September 19, 2025
baseball card of an illustration of a korean woman with long black hair, text: r. o. kwon, national book critics circle john leonard finalist
Dear (R.O. (Reese) Kwon): This is in reference to your recent application to the National Endowment for the Arts' FY 2026 Creative Writing Fellowships. The NEA has cancelled the FY 2026 Creative Writing Fellowships program. The Creative Writing category has been Withdrawn by the Agency and will not be reviewed. We recognize that receiving this news can be disappointing, especially after all the hard work and dedication you put into your application.
daikon & mushroom-fish cakes in a broth, with bowls in the background
Korean woman with long black hair in raincoat. Text: The American Library in Paris, 2025-2026 Visiting Fellow, R. O. Kwon
Against AI: An Open Letter From Writers to Publishers “We want our publishers to stand with us. To make a pledge that they will never release books that were created by machines.”
selfie with susan choi, two korean women smiling
Korean woman with black glasses holding up a paperback copy of EXHIBIT by R. O. Kwon
pictures of two Asian women, both hanging from a colorful ceiling display, along with a red sign saying “Sinn Sisamouth, Cambodian, Artist, Singer-Songwriter”
R.O. Kwon teaches Writing into Fear: A Writing Workshop Online session Wednesday, May 7 from 8pm to 10pm EST Increasingly, I trust in fear as a kind of guidepost: I walk toward it by writing about what terrifies me, what I can barely stand to put on a page, making art about the secret things I can hardly tell myself. Or as Toni Morrison said: “I am so terrified of terror that I always go where it is—for worse than anything for me is not facing the fear. If something is disturbing to me, I shoot there as fast as I can. I cannot abide that ability to not abide in my own destiny. There’s no evasion. It’s very compelling to go directly to the source. What you fear—it’s always information." How might fear serve as a guidepost for what you want to write next? What to do with the anxiety and even panic that can arise while trusting in fear? This class will be lecture-based and generative, and you'll leave with strategies for how to work along and with your own fears. — R.O. Kwon
April issue of Travel + Leisure, with a person leafing through an article about Barcelona
“Goddess Complex” is astute about the repetitiveness of misery, and how pain can accrete like an enclosing wall, rising to block out the rest of the world. As Sanjana’s desperation builds, so do the grievances of those she loves. She masturbates to online real estate listings (“I set a minimum total price of $750,000”), and disrupts a friend’s baby shower by getting high and yelling the word “abortion.” Her sister kicks her out after she has sex with a 24-year-old in the backyard, captured on the security camera for Sanjana’s 7-year-old niece to see. (She even allowed the 24-year-old to urinate on her sister’s tomato garden, having heard that urine helps tomatoes grow.)
FICTION After an Abortion and a Separation, a 30-Something Flails Toward Adulthood The novel “Goddess Complex,” by Sanjena Sathian, takes a sharp turn from an existential crisis into a more literal one.
time I hit a personal record, nothing can negate the new triumph. It happened; it’s a fact, established. Before long, I’ll push a little higher. Such thrills are difficult to obtain in the rest of my life, much of which is dictated by writing. I am, to date, a slow writer—my debut novel took ten years. My second, nine. There was overlap between those years, but still. Upon finishing a book draft, I feel no sense of accomplishment: there are so many more to go. Meanwhile, as is true for any number of artists, my well-being is predicated on that of my writing. The first depends on the second. I think sometimes of what Honoré de Balzac said when he ran into his writer friends at the end of a day. He didn’t inquire how they were doing; instead, he asked if they’d worked well that day, since, if they said yes, it necessarily followed that his friends were thriving.
Accordingly, the threat of injury flits close. Every time I lift a barbell, I’m incapable of thinking beyond what my body is doing. How’s my core—did I square my scapulas—how’s my grip—are my shoulders rounding—what about my back—use my legs—push my feet into the ground. Core, grip, shoulders, back, legs, feet, I tell myself, time and again, circling around a ritual that seems to expand with each reprise. The ritual defines a charmed ring, an idyll, in which I have not a thing to do but inhabit a body, this bundle of muscle and skin going so far past what I thought to be its limits.
Power Lifting Made Me a Better Writer Strength training became an artistic practice for one best-selling novelist BY R.O. KWONPUBLISHED: FEB 26, 2025 bookmarks
The 24 Best Last-Minute Valentine’s Day Gifts Updated February 13, 2025 Photo: Marki Williams Mari Uyehara Samantha Schoech By Mari Uyehara and Samantha Schoech
jagae furniture, black & mother-of-pearl
cover of Lauren Markham’s book Immemorial, with pink trees on a green background
screenshot of the 5 calls app landing page, with possible issues to address
screenshot from the piece: I was rapt from the start, fascinated. Some years ago, I came across a photo of a 1989 performance piece called Abortion: she dangled from rafters for two hours, talking about her experience of the procedure. She was tied in ropes, nude, and licking a lollipop in 1989. Abortion wasn’t decriminalized in South Korea until 2021. I’m also Korean, and though I’ve lived most of my life in the United States, my own body feels so boxed in by fixed, longstanding rules about what a Korean woman can or can’t do that I was and am astonished, utterly delighted by her daring.
one of the sculptures described in the piece: a human-like figure branching off with what could be wings or legs, posed in a contrapposto
screenshot of the page at the link
a bowl of oden from Rintaro
bowl of ramen with an egg
It feels dangerous, still, to admit to being an ambitious woman. Those two words, joined — ambitious, woman — can already seem to describe a person who’ll be disliked, perhaps reviled, for wanting as she does. I’ve often thought of something writer Chris Kraus said about postmodern artist Kathy Acker, that what really scandalized people about her work wasn’t how overtly sexual it could be, but instead how open Acker was about the depths and heights of her ambition. What a gift, then, to have friends with whom I can talk openly about art and ambition, and to be able to support one another along the way. And group chats can be, among their other virtues, a place to get very honest: What gets said in the group chat stays in the group chat, and so on. Accordingly, a group chat that I especially prize is the one I have going with a couple of fellow Korean American writers, Nicole Chung and Crystal Hana Kim. We first got close when we published our first books the same year, back in 2018. In 2020
Dangerous Women by R. O. Kwon author of THE INCENDIARIES and EXHIBIT texts: Is there anything we can do to support you this week other than amplifying book-related things? Rest up love am trying to remind myself that all will be well, but obviously if anything happens, you must avenge me
image of a person writing in a notebook words: Joyce Carol Oates Prize, 2025 Longlist
What are you going to try to do with this next draft? Be even less afraid. Don’t hold back. Don’t indulge yourself. Serve the book. Waste as little time as possible. Read for the book, torque your mind around it. Push each line to be the most truthful, living version of itself. 6.18.22 Wrote six-hundred-plus words. Yesterday, spent time looking for a replacement for a repeated use of the word “pine,” looking up tree-related words, then deleting the line entirely. It was excruciating but satisfying. This is the part I’ve been waiting for, trying each word for its life. 6.19.22 I think you should resume starting each day with reading a poem.
10.26.17 Were early drafts in book one this hard? Trying to care less about how I feel, let alone how I feel about this book, and just—keep plodding along. 3.7.18 So many questions, such a lot of balls in the air, each one’s possible drop a future-changing threat. Rattled, fractured. High-strung. Bouncing around. Ups and downs. Can’t even stick to a metaphor in these three lines. 5.6.18 The power’s out for the night, so here I am with Scotch and four candles, rereading old journal entries and remembering that this halcyon “other time,” when I could prioritize my fiction, when I wrote every day—it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t halcyon. You were so fucking sad for most of it. What is real is that you had routine access to the short spells of transcendence that come with having your writing
BOMB Magazine NONFICTION A Novel's Hidden Diary: Writing Exhibit Process journal: Seven years of notes BY R.O. KWON NOVEMBER 26, 2024
I came to you By Jean Valentine I came to you Lord, because of the fucking reticence of this world no, not the world, not reticence, oh Lord Come Lord Come We were sad on the ground Lord Come We were sad on the ground.
weights on a bar