Why did you choose education and what’s your favorite thing about teaching? Phew! You’ve worked in education for a while.
Also, my editor is very funny and between the two of us, we found a few things that worked. I actually researched and studied joke structure and stand-up comedy to prepare for these scenes. Trust me when I say that I wrote many versions of the jokes you see published. The comedy scenes were easily the hardest scenes to write. How did you come up with the jokes? I thought many of them were quite funny! Yumi’s time at the comedy camp are some of my favorite scenes. I am probably a little more like Ginny than Yumi in that way. Unlike Yumi, I am not shy at all, in fact I skew more outgoing and chatty. Yumi and I struggle with the same kinds of fears, but our personalities are actually quite different. But what are some differences between Yumi’s character and you? I see some parallels between Yumi’s life and yours - you both rocked a perm in middle school, have immigrant Korean parents, for example. That duality was fascinating to me and I wanted to explore it a little more through Yumi.
It was like two parts of my heart were battling one another, one influenced by my Asian-immigrant upbringing, and the other influenced by the individualistic “can-do” attitude I developed growing up in America. Thank you so much, Afoma for reading, I’m so glad that Yumi’s story resonated with you! I decided to write about the friction between Yumi and her parents because, at the time, I was struggling with my own complicated feelings about being a writer.Īs a newish writer, part of me felt like it was a silly and risky endeavor to pour so much time, effort, and money into my dream of writing a book and the other part of me couldn’t help but dream anyway. Why did you decide to write about this conflict of interests? Yumi is a budding stand-up comic whose immigrant parents would rather have focus on her academics and pursue a conventional career. I’m so grateful I got a chance to read an early copy. Hi Jessica! As you know, I LOVED Stand Up, Yumi Chung. I spoke to Jessica about why she wrote this story, writing about financial difficulties in middle-grade books, and her path as a teacher and writer. When Yumi ends up in a comedy camp as a result of mistaken identity, she grabs the opportunity with both hands. Yumi, the book’s young heroine wants to be a stand up comic, but her immigrant Korean parents want a different path for her.
Author Jessica Kim’s debut novel Stand Up, Yumi Chung is especially close to my heart.
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