Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.

This episode has been sponsored by Book Hampton. As the premier independent bookstore in the Hamptons,

Bookhampton has a highly curated selection of books for readers of all ages, unique, one-of-a-kind gifts, and exciting author events.

Browse their fabulous staff suggestions online at bookhampton.com.

I'm thrilled to be here today with Min Jin Lee.

Min Jin Lee is the award-winning best-selling author of Pachinko, a multi-generational novel about a Korean family and the Korean diaspora.

Pachinko was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction and a New York Times 10 best books of the year in 2017.

It will be translated into 24 languages.

Her first book, Free Food for Millionaires, was also a national bestseller.

Minjin Lee has written for The New Yorker, the New York Times

Book Review, the Wall Street Journal, and many other notable publications. She received a Guggenheim

fellowship in 2018. Born in Seoul Korea, Min moved to Queens and graduated from Bronx

Science High School, where she was inducted into the Bronx Science Hall of Fame and then went

on to Yale University, winning prizes in both fiction

and nonfiction. Now based in Boston, she will be a writer in residence at Amherst College

from 2019 to 2022. So you've said that you worked on the story, Pichinko, for almost 30 years,

that you've written it and rewritten it multiple times, even starting completely from scratch in 2008.

I want to know what it felt like the minute you threw the draft away and then you had to sit back

down at your computer and start over again. When the cursor was blinking that moment, what was

that like? What did that feel like? How did you motivate to start it again and then again?

Well, I'm really familiar of feeling discouraged.

So it helps.

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