Sung J. Woo: Literary Virtuoso
by David Jastrow
Sung J. Woo is a literary renaissance man. The New Jersey-based writer’s short stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, PEN/Guernica, and Vox. He has written three novels, Love Love (2015), Everything Asian (2009), which won the 2010 Asian Pacific American Librarians Association Literature Award, and Skin Deep (2020), his first foray into mystery and suspense. He is a diehard tennis fan and player and one of his Modern Love essays was turned into an episode of Modern Love: Mumbai, streaming on Amazon Prime.
Skin Deep centers around protagonist Siobhan O’Brien, a Korean American adoptee, and a reluctant private investigator. The character is facing the daunting decision about whether to carry on the PI agency that her dead boss unexpectedly left to her. Easing into middle age, Siobhan would generally rather have a glazed donut than a romance, but when an old friend asks Siobhan to find her daughter who has disappeared from her dorm, the rookie private detective’s search begins.
Woo’s love of the mystery book genre can be traced back to his high school and college days, when he discovered and deeply immersed himself into the works of Dick Francis and Robert B. Parker for the first time. Woo would sometimes read one of those novels a week, if not more, and became inspired to try his hand at it. He had written literary novels, but it took him more than twenty years to gain the courage to try his hand at completing his own mystery title.
“I wrote the beginning of Skin Deep in 1994,” Woo says. “Twenty-six years is how long it took me from beginning to end.” The book began as his senior writing project. Not much of what he wrote back then survived, but the plot remained intact: a girl disappearing from her dorm room and a detective seeking to find out what happened. By the time Skin Deep was published, Woo had connected more deeply with the mystery and thriller writing community.
Woo joined a Listserv called Crime Writers of Color (CWOC), an association of authors seeking to present a strong and united voice for members who self-identify as crime/mystery writers from traditionally underrepresented racial, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds. It was founded by award winning authors Walter Mosley, Gigi Pandian, and Kellye Garrett in June of 2018.
CWOC collaborates with bookstores and libraries interested in making their crime fiction selections more diverse, hosts live and virtual events, and features a speaker’s directory of crime writers to give a talk, teach a workshop, or participate on a panel for events or organizations. It also has a Writers of Color Podcast featuring interviews with today’s leading and emerging crime writers of color with host Robert Justice. “It feels like much more like a close-knit community than literary writers,” Woo says.
While his most recent novel is a mystery title, Woo has written works in a wide variety of styles and categories. His first book, Everything Asian, was semi-autobiographical and described the first year of an immigrant boy’s life once he came to America. The second one, Love, Love, was primarily about tennis and art, two subjects Woo is very passionate about. Skin Deep was the culmination of Woo’s long existent desire to write a mystery novel.
“I don’t have any grand plan when it comes to my quote-unquote career,” Woo says. “It just kind of happened.” His fourth book is also going to be a mystery novel. It’s the follow-up to Skin Deep because he signed a two-book deal. “It’s the first time I had an actual due date and I had to write it to complete my contract,” he added. That follow-up book is expected to be released next summer.
Woo’s experience moving to the U.S. from South Korea at a young age shaped the way he writes and his approach to writing. “I don’t think there are too many mystery novels that star an immigrant detective who also happens to be a transracial adoptee, adopted by white parents even though she is Korean,” Woo says. “It’s a very specific area that I found.”
Woo learned more about transracial adoptees during his first book tour when he met several in San Francisco. Their points of view fascinated Woo and planted the seeds for the character that eventually became Skin Deep’s Siobhan O’Brien. “Whether me being an immigrant informs my writing, I’m sure that it does,” Woo says. “By and large, I think I see things from an outsider’s point of view. Even though I’ve been here for way longer than the time I spent in Korea, I still feel like an outsider, and I don’t think that is going to change.”
At the Collingswood Book Festival, Woo says he hopes to meet people interested in what he does and get to talk to them. “Especially after what’s happened with COVID, I’m really very thankful for any kind of actual in person interactivity,” Woo says. “It’s going to be great!”
Sung J. Woo will be joined by mystery and suspense author Riley Sager at the Collingswood Book Festival on October 1 between 1:00 and 2:00 p.m. at the Adult Authors tent. He will be available for Q&A and to sign copies of Skin Deep, which will be offered for sale by event sponsor Inkwood Books.
