Staff Spotlight: Reese Kwon
Posted by David Duhr in 
Over the past few weeks we’ve been introducing you all to the wonderful consultants and coaches who help keep WriteByNight running like the smooth, well-oiled writers’ services machine it is.
Recently we welcomed to WBN Reese Kwon, a Frisco-based writer who enjoys reading, but perhaps not to the point of bibliobibuliness. Or bibliobibuliaity.
Below is a Q&A with Reese, followed by a brief bio.
Where are you from?
I was born in Seoul, South Korea, and grew up near Los Angeles. I live in San Francisco now, though I’ve also lived in New York, D.C., Paris, Siena, and Budapest.
Where did you study?
I received a BA from Yale University and an MFA from Brooklyn College.
Who are some of your influences?
I tend to find this hard to do—influences come in all day long, I’d say, from books, music, conversations, and so on. That said, books I’ve read recently that I’ve admired include Marianne Moore’s collected poems, Primo Levi’s The Drowned and the Saved, and Jorge Amado’s Dona Flor. I also just reread Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, which seems a near-perfect book.
What is the hardest part of writing for you?
The first draft. I much prefer revising.
What is your strangest writing experience?
I once wrote much of a story while sick, feverish, in bed, and loopy from NyQuil. I write slowly, in general—this story came fast.
What is your favorite word and why?
I love them all, really, but I’ve recently learned “bibliobibuli,” a relatively recently coined word meaning “people who read too much.”
Word association: Literature
Music!
What’s the last book you read and what did you think of it?
I just finished rereading Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, a book I’ve loved for years. It’s exquisitely entertaining, especially when the book is spending time with its antihero, Becky Sharp.
Reese Kwon has been published or is forthcoming in the Believer, Ploughshares, Southern Review, and elsewhere. A recipient of scholarships from Yaddo, Ledig House, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, she has been named one of Narrative Magazine’s “30 Below 30” writers.