Q&A With Chin-Sun Lee 

I have the honor and pleasure of doing this Q&A with author Chin-Sun Lee. Chin-Sun is the author of Upcountry, which was listed among Publishers Weekly’s Big Indie Books of Fall 2023. Chin-Sun has also had work appear in Electric Literature, Literary Hub, The Georgia Review, The Rumpus, Joyland, and The Believer Logger, among other publications. She is a contributor to The New York Times Bestselling anthology Women in Clothes. In her past she had a long career in the fashion world before realizing her calling and dream as a writer. 

Q: Chin-Sun, would you give a brief description of Upcountry? 

A: Upcountry is a Northern Gothic and psychological thriller about three women—a middle-class attorney, an impoverished single mother (both white and middle-aged), and a young Korean member of a religious cult—whose lives converge in a small Catskills town. Though vastly different, all three women are connected through a house, followed by a local child’s drowning, setting in motion a vortex binding their fates in tragic and redemptive ways. It’s about class and alienation, and is atmospheric in tone, with a distinct sense of place and eerie mysticism. Ultimately, the novel probes the significance (and mystery) of luck, fate, and resilience through this portrait of lives entwined by catastrophe and coincidence.

Q: Where did the idea for Upcountry come from & how long did it take for you to write the novel?

A: About ten years ago, while taking a walk in the Catskills, I came across a drained and crumbling old pool enclosed by a chain-link fence, and that image hooked into my brain. It made me think about financial downfalls, class disparity, and the repercussions of the 2008 recession, which were still evident, especially in rural towns. That was the initial seed. I also knew I wanted to write about women and how they find connection despite having very different backgrounds. I started writing the novel in 2015 and finished a draft in 2018, but it went through several revisions, even after I signed with my agent and up until it finally found a publisher in 2022.

Q: We briefly spoke about your upcoming novel & that you recently sent your agent the manuscript. Would you like to give a brief description of this novel & where the idea for it came from?

A: I’ve just finished a draft of my second novel, Soon You’ll Be Just Like Us, a work of speculative fiction set in a near-future Los Angeles. It involves Korean plastic surgery, a feminist terrorist group, and reproductive cloning. The novel examines the relationship between the body and consciousness, feminism and patriarchy, and the ethics of climate survival under capitalism. The initial genesis came from an old Gawker article from 2013 showcasing photos of the contestants of that year’s Miss Korea beauty pageant, and how similar they all looked after undergoing extreme plastic surgery. It’s a trend I’d also noticed from the Korean soap operas or news channels my parents watched whenever I went home, and the magazines they subscribed to as well. Somehow seeing that Gawker photo with its gallery of near-identical faces was so chilling, like an Asian version of The Stepford Wives. I just knew I wanted to write about it one day.

Q: What lessons do you hope readers learn after reading your novels? What emotions do you want readers to feel after reading your novels?

A: I have no lessons to impart in my novels—in fact, I really hope to avoid being didactic. I write to confront certain questions and obsessions I have that, for me, can only be explored through language and storytelling. My hope is that readers will feel drawn into those same questions and interests; that they leave the world of my novel feeling like they’ve had an unexpected, resonant experience that lingers after the last page.

Q: What was it like having a career in fashion? Would you ever return to it, or do you want to just focus on writing?

A: Fashion was and is a tough industry, like any business, and towards the end, I wanted out so badly. I will never, ever return to it. But the upside was that, especially as a young person, I got to travel a lot, staying in places I could never have afforded on my own, and experienced so many different cultures. It also taught me how to be professional, organized, and thick-skinned, all of which is helpful as a writer. Most of all, I met some wonderful people who are my friends to this day. I met terrible people too, but now they’re excellent fodder for fiction! 

Q: You have had work appear in Electric Literature, Literary Hub, The Georgia Review, The Rumpus, Joyland, The Believer Logger among other publications! I think that’s impressive! What is your advice for anyone wanting to submit work to those publications? What is the submission process like?

A: Thank you. I’m grateful to all those publications and their editors, and I also have to give props to my publicist, Allison Miriam Woodnutt, who helped place some of the more recent pieces around the timeframe of my book’s launch. My advice to writers regarding submitting to these or other journals is to first get familiar with their content; read the kinds of work they publish, support the journal if possible by buying an issue or subscription, and then follow their submission guidelines, addressing a short professional note to the appropriate editor/s. Personally, I’ve found the submission process differs with each journal. I’ve had pieces plucked from the slush pile or solicited directly from editors (that’s always nice!), accepted within an hour or after over a year, and paid from zero to several hundred dollars. Most journals allow simultaneous submissions, since it can take months for them to review, so I suggest sending out in batches, maybe five or so at a time, then submitting to a new journal with each rejection, so it’s always circulating (and therefore, you stay hopeful). If your piece gets accepted and you want to go with that journal, do withdraw from the others ASAP in order not to waste anyone’s time. And celebrate! Writing and publishing can be extremely challenging, so it’s really important to acknowledge the wins.

Q: What’s it like knowing that Upcountry was listed among Publishers Weekly’s Big Indie Books of Fall 2023 & that it had such high praise from Kirkus Reviews & Ms. Magazine? 

A: It’s always a huge, pleasant surprise to be recognized by any media outlet, whether through a review or inclusion on a roundup list. I can’t imagine that I will ever get old. But I will say that the most rewarding feeling of all is to encounter actual readers in person (that I don’t know!) who’ve enjoyed the novel. It’s so surreal and humbling and affirming. The whole debut experience is profound, but knowing that this story, sprung from the odd corners of my mind, is actually finding an audience out in the world is truly gratifying.