Mary H.K. Choi

Mary H.K. Choi is a Korean-American author, editor, television and print journalist.

Quotes

 * Taking time to color in the people around your main characters truly does a lot of heavy lifting for you in terms of subtext and context because tiny misunderstandings and micro-aggressions or avoidance speaks volumes without requiring so much exposition…
 * On portraying different kinds of relationships in her book Emergency Contact in “Interview with Mary H.K. Choi” in The Rumpus (2018 May 18)


 * The thing about sexual assault and the narrative that gets played out so often is that it’s a deadlock. It’s what one person said vs. what another person said. It’s just that my personal experience as a survivor is incredibly muddied. I was very young and had such a crush on the person. I willingly obliged so many preambles to The Moment. I felt incredibly complicit. My self-gaslighting was so sustained and calcified that I wasn’t entirely sure if it “counted.” At the time it wasn’t something I would ever have felt secure declaring as assault if the burden of proof lay with me recounting everything about my intentions vs. the other person’s. We talk about consent and it’s important to define, but it’s never this hard and fast yes/no pact that’s then committed to the stenographer…
 * On sexual assault being a storyline in Emergency Contact in “An Interview with Mary H.K. Choi, Author of Emergency Contact” (Barnes & Noble; 2018 Mar 28)


 * Sometimes there’s nothing better in the world than talking to another creative person about where you are, because you may feel like you’re floating in outer space a lot of the time.
 * On communicating with other like-minded individuals in “Mary H.K. Choi, Author of ‘Emergency Contact’ (Interview)” in Ily Magazine (2018 May 8)


 * It doesn’t get any less scary. All that happens is that you have less life left. It helps if you do your falling early, and it really helps if you do your reaching early.
 * On trying to achieve your dreams in “Mary H.K. Choi, Author of ‘Emergency Contact’ (Interview)” in Ily Magazine (2018 May 8)