{"id":21674,"date":"2013-10-30T09:33:31","date_gmt":"2013-10-30T13:33:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=21674"},"modified":"2015-08-17T09:54:40","modified_gmt":"2015-08-17T13:54:40","slug":"author-interview-julie-wu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/author-interview-julie-wu\/","title":{"rendered":"Author Interview: Julie Wu [in Bloom]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Julie<\/a>At 22, Julie Wu<\/a>\u00a0had a \u201cvision\u201d about a sad young boy that she immediately rushed to capture in words. From those initial notes, she would take almost a quarter century to bring him to the page: at age 46, she \u201cbloomed\u201d as a first-time novelist. The Third Son<\/em>, about a Taiwanese boy and his journey from being the abused son in a privileged family to his reinvention as a successful American immigrant, finally hit shelves in April this year.<\/p>\n

I just discovered this humorous post you did for Beyond the Margins<\/em>: \u201cWhat It Means When Your Reviewer is Mean, Unfair, and Totally Doesn\u2019t Get It<\/a>,\u201d in which you \u201cfess up\u201d about your own state of mind when you wrote a negative review of a medical article years ago. So have you encountered any bad reviews of The Third Son<\/em>? If so, how did you react?<\/strong>
\nOh, of course. I know that reading taste is so individualized. I\u2019ve been lucky that the majority of the reviews have been so positive, but when I get a bad one I read it and see if it makes sense to me. If I find a common thread in bad reviews, I should take note. If I find [it] totally different from what others say, I chalk it up to taste.<\/p>\n

And what might you say to such a reviewer if you ever met him or her?<\/strong>
\nI guess I would say I\u2019m sorry you didn\u2019t like my book. Hope you like my next one!<\/p>\n

I take it you\u2019re not the confrontational type … no spats at the next AWP<\/a>, huh?<\/strong>
\nNo \u2013\u00a0you can\u2019t browbeat someone into liking your book.<\/p>\n

So at 46, let\u2019s say you\u2019re almost half-way to the other side, so to speak … our generation might easily live to be 100 apparently. And, even better, you\u2019re a doctor, so you can heal yourself. You\u2019ve had many incarnations during your first half \u2013\u00a0violinist, opera singer, doctor, mother. The \u201cmother\u201d-title you\u2019ll keep forever, of course. So what about \u201cwriter\u201d? Think this one will stick for a while?
\n<\/strong>I view the \u201cwriter\u201d role as my ultimate one. It encompasses the whole of my life\u2019s experience. Everything I have goes into a piece of writing.<\/p>\n

Having fulfilled the stereotypical Asian immigrant parents\u2019 dream of becoming a doctor, how did they react when you decided to give up your practice and devote yourself full time to writing? Do you think you\u2019ll ever go back to doctor-ing?<\/strong>
\nWell, I kind of took the backdoor route to a full time writing career. I had kids first, so the reason I gave for quitting my medical job was to take care of them. And once I was home, well …<\/p>\n

… and an immigrant grandparent wants ONLY the best for their precious grandchildren!<\/strong>
\nExactly! And it\u2019s possible I\u2019ll go back in some capacity. We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s talk Third Son<\/em> \u2013\u00a0which was almost a quarter-century in the making. Through the many, MANY drafts and revisions, you kept some two percent of the original draft \u2013\u00a0I read a quote that said the final was 98% different from the first draft. What was that writing process like?<\/strong>
\nIt was a tremendous learning experience. It took all that time for me to mature as a person and a writer, for Taiwan to develop free speech, and for Al Gore to invent the Internet as it now stands.<\/p>\n

The Taipei Times\u00a0<\/em>reported in an article last fall that yours is the first novel in English that talks about the 228 Incident and the subsequent White Terror<\/a>. So your debut title has made literary history! How have your readers, especially Chinese Americans, responded to the history lesson you\u2019ve woven into your epic story?<\/strong> [… click here for more<\/a>]\n

Author interview<\/strong>: “Q&A with Julie Wu,” Bloom<\/em>, October 30, 2013<\/a><\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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From those initial notes, she would take almost a quarter century to bring him to the page: at age 46, she \u201cbloomed\u201d as a first-time novelist….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25518,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4,21,6,6535,730,185],"tags":[182,6608,10,25,729,39,28,731],"class_list":["post-21674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-author-interview-profile","category-chinese-american","category-fiction","category-repost","category-taiwanese","category-taiwanese-american","tag-bloom","tag-bookdragon","tag-family","tag-immigration","tag-julie-wu","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-politics","tag-third-son"],"yoast_head":"\nAuthor Interview: Julie Wu [in Bloom] - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/author-interview-julie-wu\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Author Interview: Julie Wu [in Bloom] - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"At 22, Julie Wu\u00a0had a \u201cvision\u201d about a sad young boy that she immediately rushed to capture in words. 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