Contemporary Authors

• Emergency Contact Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (New York, NY), 2018

1. Emergency contact LCCN 2017059681 Type of material Book Personal name Choi, Mary H. K., author. Main title Emergency contact / Mary H. K. Choi. Edition First edition. Published/Produced New York : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2018. Projected pub date 1803 Description 1 online resource. ISBN 9781534408982 (Ebook)

• Wikipedia -

  Mary H.K. Choi
  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  Mary H.K. Choi
  Born Seoul, South Korea
  Alma mater University of Texas at Austin
  Occupation Author, journalist
  Years active 2002-present
  Employer Vice Media
  Works Emergency Contact
  Website choitotheworld.com

  Mary H.K. Choi is a Korean-American author, editor, television and print journalist. She is the author of young adult novel Emergency Contact (2018). She is the culture correspondent on Vice News Tonight on HBO and was previously a columnist at Wired and Allure magazines as well as a freelance writer.

  Early Life

  Mary H.K. Choi was born in Seoul, South Korea and immigrated to Hong Kong before her first birthday.[1] She lived there until moving to Texas just before she turned 14.[2] She attended a large public high school in a suburb of San Antonio,[2] then college at the University of Texas at Austin, where she majored in Textile and Apparel.[3]
  Career

  After graduating from college, Choi moved from Austin to New York[4] in 2002.[2] Her first job in 2002 was as an editorial intern at Mass Appeal magazine in Red Hook, Brooklyn,[4] where she eventually became an editor.[2] She then worked at XXL and Hip Hop Soul before becoming founding editor-in-chief of Missbehave, a Brooklyn-based alternative magazine for young women.[2][5] (Through her time at XXL, Choi published as Mary Choi; since then, she has included the initials for her Korean name, Hyun Kyung.)[2]

  Choi has drawn notice for her reporting and essays on a wide range of topics, including teen use of social media,[6] her relationship with her mom,[7] music,[2] life as an ex-pat,[2] and fashion.[8][9] She has been a columnist at Wired, editor-at-large for MTV Style and a contributing editor at Allure.[2] She has also written for GQ,[10] The New York Times,[11] New York,[12] The Atlantic, Billboard and The Fader.

  Choi is a culture correspondent at Vice News Tonight on HBO.[13] She was the executive producer of House of Style: Music, Models and MTV, a 2012 documentary.[14] In 2013 she became the supervising producer, then head writer, of Take Part Live, a daily live news show for Participant Media.[15]

  Choi hosts a monthly podcast called Hey, Cool Job, in which she interviews people about their jobs and the paths they took to arrive in their roles.[16]
  Books

  Choi was the writer of Marvel Comics' Lady Deadpool #1.[17] She has also written Marvel's Shanna the She-Devil[18] and has contributed to the CMYK anthology and the Ghosts anthology for Vertigo Comics.[19]

  In 2014, Choi published a collection of essays as a Kindle Single called, Oh, Never Mind, which describes, among other topics, her decision to leave New York.[20] She had met with a number of editors and grew frustrated by the pessimism she encountered about the sales prospects for an essay collection; instead she accepted an offer from Amazon to write the short collection of essays as a Kindle Single for a $5000 payment plus 70% of profits, the right to set the price of the collection, and retention of full ownership of the copyright.[15]

  Choi also co-wrote the DJ Khaled book, The Keys, developed from Khaled's Snapchat videos in which he offers fans advice on how to achieve the lifestyle he has. In a review for The New Yorker, Hua Hsu said that while the book contained some standard self-help fare, "there’s ultimately something goofy and uplifting about it all, a warm generosity that makes Khaled someone whose success you can’t begrudge."[21]

  Choi's first novel, Emergency Contact, is a young adult novel published in 2018 by Simon & Schuster.[22] Choi has described the book as partly inspired by Judy Blume's novel Forever..., because Blume had "said she just wanted to write a story about ‘two people who have sex but then nothing terrible happens'...I love that,” Choi told The New York Times.[22] Choi's novel is a love story conducted primarily by text message, with Penny (a Korean-American freshman at the University of Texas-Austin)[23] giving Sam her number after she happens to be passing by as Sam has his first panic attack.[24] Writing for Entertainment Weekly, David Canfield said in Emergency Contact, Choi "vividly realizes Korean-American culture and explores microaggressions on a sharply recognizable level...weav[ing] these experiences into a narrative rife with witty banter and steamy romantic chemistry; the YA frame doesn’t push the more challenging material to the margins, but rather renders it naturalistically potent."[25]
  Personal life

  Choi's brother is Marvel and DC artist Michael Choi.[26]

  After college, Choi lived in New York until moving to Los Angeles circa 2014,[2] a decision she described in Oh, Never Mind.[20]

  Choi speaks four languages.[2]
  Works and publications

  Choi, Mary H.K., Emergency Contact. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018; ISBN 9781534408968
  Choi, Mary H.K., CMYK (black). Vertigo Comics (DC Comics), 2015; ISBN 978-1401253363
  Choi, Mary H.K., Oh Never Mind. Kindle Single, 2014; ASIN: B00N93UVC2
  Choi, Mary H.K., Ghosts. Vertigo Comics (DC Comics), 2012.
  Choi, Mary H.K., Lady Deadpool #1. Marvel Comics, 2010; UPC: 5960607113-00111

• Mary H.K. Choi Home Page - http://www.choitotheworld.com/#bio-section

  YOU HAD MEAT HELLO
  Hi pals. The big news is that MY BOOK IS OUT on Simon & Schuster. It's a YA novel called Emergency Contact. Please visit your local pulp purveyor to purchase.

  Read an excerpt on EW.com.

  Or check out my triumphant return to the number one show on late night! Desus & Mero

  Or read this super-righteous STARRED review on Publisher's Weekly. AND this very swoon-worthy mind-meld in the Atlantic. Or perhaps THE NEW YORK TIMES? Nylon more your speed? WHADDABOUT the Verge? Meow.

  Oh and this ILY magazine article where I talk about art and love and how the two influence each other. It is one of my favorites.

  Check out some articles and essays I have written here. Watch some things I've made here. And sign up for my podcast here.

  Also, find me @choitotheworld on Twitter or IG for appearances and updates! xo

• Verge - https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/28/17052962/emergency-contact-mary-choi-interview-epistolary-romance-young-adult-iphone

  Emergency Contact is a dreamy YA love story told through texts
  6
  Mary H.K. Choi on romance, iMessage, and making her phone ugly
  By Kaitlyn Tiffany Feb 28, 2018, 9:00am EST
  SHARE

  Photo by Aaron Richter
  Penny, the college freshman heroine of Emergency Contact, is really good at texting with a sad barista boy named Sam. He’s really good at texting her back! They want to be artists and find love and make money and follow their dreams, but their typical conversation goes like this:

  “What if this is our one thing?”

  “Lol. What like texting?”

  “Yeah. Maybe this is what we’re good at. I’m not mad”

  “Phones rule. Humans drool”

  “lol”

  “We’re the best. This is the best”

  That’s it, that’s the premise of Mary H.K. Choi’s debut novel.

  A writer with a sharp sense of humor and a knack for getting inside the heads of young people, Choi has reported on emoji and Instagram for Wired, written comic books for Marvel, published an autobiographical book about leaving New York, and blogged about other people’s baffling fashion choices. Emergency Contact is her first foray into writing YA fiction, one that uses her established internet voice as a springboard into a conversational and modern look at teen neuroticism.

  Emergency Contact is little more than a sweet, breezy, epistolary romance by design. The first people Choi shared the draft with suggested that she give it a bigger, more challenging plot to make the emotional stakes higher. She refused. Instead, she wrote a book about two characters who could be trusted to treat each other kindly, who struggle with vulnerability and communication like nearly everyone else alive. It’s<< an unexpectedly generous book that gives people the benefit of the doubt, one that feels both airy and nutritious>>, like when your dessert is angel food cake and whole strawberries.

  It gives serious consideration to a coming-of-age question that’s specific to this moment in time: can some suburban 18- to 24-year-olds experience true intimacy when their relationship is primarily mediated by their iPhones? The most obvious companion read for Emergency Contact is Elif Batuman’s The Idiot (published almost exactly a year ago), which asked a similar series of questions about falling in love over email in the mid-‘90s. It was a devastating roast of Ivy League teen pretension and an exhilarating excavation of the morality of narrativizing your own life, a book acclaimed by critics for its craft but devoured by so many 30-somethings largely because it was that buzzword: relatable.

  For all of us — or at least, for me and everyone I know — it is tempting to think that our interiority is so special and advanced that we are in fact the first people to develop an infatuation with someone’s mind via a digital conduit. This is wildly untrue, and any book that debunks this solipsistic fiction is both useful and shakily uncomfortable. So, recently, I called Choi to talk about beautiful devices, young love, and a subgenre that should expand forever.

  This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

  It was so funny to me that the reader’s introduction to Penny is just her talking about how beautiful her iPhone is. What’s your relationship like with your Apple devices?

  Well, right now I’m grayscale because my phone is so beautiful that I have to make it look ugly. My screen and my wallpaper and everything is grayscale. And I also have the triple tap so it darkens. I have all of the things to make it less attractive to me because, apparently, I’m a horrible magpie when it comes to my phone. I’m going through the most traumatic experience of two of my very close friends getting Pixels. They jumped to team green bubble without any preamble, and that was a really challenging and traumatizing time.

  “MY PHONE IS SO BEAUTIFUL THAT I HAVE TO MAKE IT LOOK UGLY.”
  Especially for Penny, this is her first phone that was new when she got it. This was, for her, kind of a rite of passage. And when you do get your first iPhone, there’s something about the matteness of the box, once you rip off the cellophane part. It’s almost like when you open a brand-new journal that’s perfect bound, the smell of the paper, just huffing that. It’s almost a tactile sensation.

  Remember [Vertu], that phone that was so, so expensive, and it was supposed to be the Centurion black card but of cellphones? Basically the Cartier Love bracelet of phones, so expensive. The iPhone is exorbitantly expensive as well, but there is an equalizing aspect to it. If you’re holding your iPhone, and it’s the newest iteration of it, you’re like, “Oh, famous people have my phone. Captains of industry have my phone.” And that can be an intoxicating experience for someone who is going off to college for the first time. It’s almost like, not a portal, but kind of a portal, for someone like Penny whose interiority is a big deal. Her phone signified more to her than her car. In fact, I think her car was kind of embarrassing for her, because it’s supposed to feel like a gateway to freedom, and for her, it just was another reminder of how she’s failing at certain aspects of socializing.

  This is your first YA novel. What made you want to try this, to write a novel that has so much texting in it?

  [The epistolary format] is a really, really good — I loathe to use the word “device” because it sounds manipulative — but it’s a good conduit. Letters or journal entries or texts speak to a type of narrator who maybe is not so good at showing versus telling. Similarly, for me personally, coming from a nonfiction background, it’s probably a crutch. Because in the kind of work that I do, I’m not used to making things up. It’s basically a crutch for how not good at world-building I am yet. It’s also a deep and sincere reflection of how most of my relationships are. I’m definitely an indoor kid who’s turned into an inside person.

  I think everyone has been in one of these situations where you text all the time and develop an inflated, false intimacy and then you hang out and you don’t know each other at all. How did you develop the texting voices of the characters, which are so distinct from how they speak out loud to each other?

  Yeah, there’s this huge seismic lag when you’re kind of waiting for the meatspace to catch up with the intimacy you have when you’re just texting with each other. Sam and Penny definitely have that in the harrowing instances where they have to interact in real life, where they’re like, “Oh my god, I wish I could just text you. Phone you, little Tamagotchi you, knows exactly what I’m thinking.”

  “THE BRAIN-THUMB BARRIER IS REALLY, REALLY THIN SOMETIMES, ESPECIALLY DEPENDING ON WHAT TIME OF DAY, WHAT TIME OF NIGHT.”
  I definitely wanted a huge difference between their meat-suit selves and their texting selves. And so I knew that those would be different, and the distinctness comes from the fact that we’re almost kind of shitty at self-editing. People say all the time that texting is really hard to deduce meaning from because it has no intonation and it has no nuance. But to a certain degree, I disagree with that, because for them, it’s almost like sodium pentothal, it’s like truth serum.

  The brain-thumb barrier is really, really thin sometimes, especially depending on what time of day, what time of night, or if you literally eat through an entire battery texting this person. It’s not like “en vino veritas,” (with wine there’s truth), it’s like “with crappy seven-hour text brain there’s truth.” You peel back all this stuff, and you find yourself saying these things that you’ve never articulated before. [Penny and Sam] kind of confess to each other the types of artists that they want to become, and how humiliating that is. But once you have the kiddie pool cul-de-sac safe space to do it in, it’s not solely you telling another person, it’s definitely you telling yourself.

  In one of Sam’s chapters, he says he “couldn’t imagine the space Penny would take up in his life if she sprang out of his phone.” And then she describes him as an “irresistible computer algorithm.” When I was reading it, I thought, “Oh no, this is going to end in disaster. They’re going to be so mean to each other.” Because there’s something dark there. I thought about it a lot when I was reading The Idiot, also — whether there is something inherently bad or evil about wanting someone to exist for you only in a digital space.

  You read about things like how Instagram’s juking the numbers so they withhold your likes so it’s that much more addictive. With Twitter, you have “Things you may have missed.” Or Instagram Stories, the way they loop together, the urgency of Instagram being like, “Fire sale on these stories, they’re going away now!” There are so many things that make your phone more addicting and we know that, and even before knowing that, we suspected that.

  When something feels too seductive — which is the way Penny feels about Sam — you do get worried. Part of it is [the fear of] catfishing, but part of it is just the incredible suspension of disbelief it requires for someone to love — or to let themselves become infatuated or beguiled or glamoured by — this one open tab. This one app. While knowing that all the other apps are kind of trying to kill you or fuck you up.

  “I’M IN LOVE WITH THIS PERSON, BUT THIS PERSON CAN NEVER HAVE SOMETHING AS SIMPLE AS SPINACH IN HER TEETH BECAUSE THIS PERSON DOESN’T HAVE TEETH.”
  And a lot of times the phone version of you, especially if your text game is savage, that’s a good aspect of you to project. So then to be like, “I also chew and poop,” all of that other bummer, biological shit that you don’t have to ever think about becomes this thing. I’m in love with this person, but this person can never have something as simple as spinach in her teeth because this person doesn’t have teeth. That’s a great, tremendous boon. Not only do you not have to consider that, they don’t have to consider that. That’s kind of rad.

  And so with two people who have social anxiety, or who are going through some issues in their lives, or feel entirely unpresentable... being able to jettison this parcel that’s a really good version of themselves and just project only that, it feels really good. Remembering that you’re doing that, conversely, just feels jarring and a little bad.

  That’s a good way to put it. There’s a part in The Idiot where they go to lunch, and the main character thinks something like, “She couldn’t believe that he had eaten every day of his life and that he was going to do it now.”

  Yes! Penny has a moment when they’re making out, where she’s like, “Oh my god, you can see out of your eyes.” And she does it earlier when Sam’s kind of passing out, where she’s like, gasp, unfettered access to your physicality with my eyes, when your eyes are closed, is so awesome. But when your eyes are open, and I realize that you’re looking at me, too, that freaks me out. Personally, I really relate to that. It’s such a trip. I think we get that all the time. Bodies are so weird, and reliance on bodies is almost at cross-purposes to where we are technologically speaking.

  I want to talk about the title. The conversation where they become “emergency contacts” is one of my favorites because it captures this joking, playful way that people designate each other as important now. It’s hard to tell where the joke ends. Like, “Is this real? Do we matter to each other? I can’t tell. We’re just joking.”

  A lot of conversations like that don’t happen anymore. Who’s ever gonna be like, “Will you be my best friend?” No, someone just declaratively calls you their bestie, which imbues that much more ambiguity in the “ie.” But I did want “Ahh! Emergency contact!” And then at the end, solemnly anchoring that with, “Yeah, I guess this is why you need an emergency contact.” I am deploying you as my emergency contact. I am breaking in case of emergency, and this is my moment to do it. I think that that is a really cool thing to do and something that I’ve only sort of arrived at in my 30s, of really leaning on your friends and formalizing it a little bit. I’m going to do this to you, on you, and you can also do this to me, on me.

  “BODIES ARE SO WEIRD, AND RELIANCE ON BODIES IS ALMOST AT CROSS-PURPOSES TO WHERE WE ARE TECHNOLOGICALLY SPEAKING.”
  Do you want to write more YA, or is Emergency Contact just an experiment?

  I’m going to write coming-of-age novels... I’m just going to write whatever I’m going to write, and whatever shelf or section they end up on at the bookstore is just going to be that, and I’ll let the marketing people pull their hair out and worry about it.

  I am definitely writing more YA. The thing that drew me to it in the first place is I like talking to people who read. Sometimes a huge work of literary fiction is a big deal and becomes this pop cultural juggernaut, and everyone will read it, but with YA — and science fiction is the same way — the people you’re talking to will read a bunch. That’s a nurturing and amazing space to go into. Fiction is very new for me, but this feels like a rad place in which to learn more about how to write, as part of a conversation with the readers who live here.

  I read a lot of YA as an adult because I think there are things you can do — like the texting in this book — that would come off as gimmicks in more traditional literary fiction. But if you’re writing for a specific audience, maybe they’ll go there with you.

  <>. It’s trickle down. A lot of that has to do with the fact that there are some really dynamite editors and great publishers and everyone was so amped about this book. I think it really matters when you have an industry of people who put the fans first. I definitely can say that with YA, as far as my personal experience with that.

  grace and the fever
  Photo: Penguin Random House
  GRACE AND THE FEVER IS A CLEAR-EYED PORTRAIT OF ‘THE GIRLS OF THE INTERNET’
  Going back to literary fiction, it’s almost positioned as this type of pop culture homework, where it’s like, “If I don’t watch this season of Game of Thrones, I can’t have dinner outside with other humans.” And certain books kind of carry that with them. In YA, you do have heavy hitters — I read Turtles All the Way Down like everyone else, as soon as it was available — but a lot of people are just going toward what they’re naturally drawn to and reading things in whatever order feels right to them. It isn’t dictated by SEO. It’s dictated by genuine inquisitiveness.

  One book that really influenced this one was obviously [Rainbow Rowell’s] Eleanor & Park. There were definitely earlier versions of this book where everyone was in a snarky-off, and the pacing was very like, Amy Sherman-Palladino or Gossip Girl and The OC. Where’s it like on, on, on, on, on. Everyone was... not mean to each other, but a little pointier. I really wanted this book to be sweet. I definitely got some criticism about it, in early reads, from people who were just weren’t the people I should have gone to for early reads, where it was like, “This is such a small story, can you make it more conceptual.” Or, “Can you make it more harrowing?” “Can you antagonize these people a little more?” “Can you make them have more friction between them?” It didn’t feel true to the characters, and it ultimately didn’t feel true to the book that I wanted.

  I did want a happy ending, as unrealistic as that is, and as ambiguous as this one particularly is. I kind of wanted to make a book that felt like a safe space but still had a lot going on. I wanted people to come away from it being like, “Oh shit, maybe I’m an artist.” Or like, “Oh shit, maybe I need to stop posturing for 1,000 people and just find one person.”

  Emergency Contact will be available March 27th through Simon & Schuster.

• Barnes & Noble - https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/teen/interview-mary-h-k-choi-author-emergency-contact/

  An Interview with Mary H.K. Choi, Author of Emergency Contact
  by Dahlia Adler/ March 28, 2018 at 1:45 pm Share
  In case you haven’t caught on from all our fawning, one of our favorite new books of the season is Mary H.K. Choi’s fabulous contemporary YA debut, Emergency Contact, about two people thrust together in a freak situation who end up becoming each other’s emergency contacts, and the relationship that builds through the constant text messaging that follows. <> It’s <> and I’m thrilled to be able to sit Choi down here to talk about it!

  Emergency Contact
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  Emergency Contact is such a strong depiction of different kinds of relationships. I absolutely adore Penny and Sam, so, putting them aside, what relationship in the book was your favorite to explore? Which one was the hardest?

  Obviously I loved writing about Sam and Penny’s burgeoning cahoots since it was sweet and thrilling and made me swoon at my desk, but my favorite and in some ways the hardest relationship to explore was Penny and her mom, Celeste. Everyone’s deal with their mom is fraught. It’s to where you almost need a trigger warning for when yours calls you on the phone (as long as your moms are still with us; I would lose my mind if I lost mine). Your mom is the first person you fall in love with, so it’s loaded forever and carries all this baggage. There’s almost always a communication barrier in place. In my case it’s a language and cultural barrier, but other times it’s because your mother’s love is conditional or because you’re fundamentally different. It’s a theme I’ll definitely revisit. In fact, anyone who’s familiar with my writing knows how frequently I write about my mom. I’ve often said I love mine a “not normal amount.”

  Penny and Sam barely know each other when they become each other’s emergency contacts, but it’s clearly a great fit from the start. What do you think makes someone an ideal emergency contact, and what made them such strong fits for each other at that point?

  It helps that they’re thrust into each other’s lives with little time to lollygag. But it’s also that their relationship is hastened by how compatible they are once the dynamic is stripped of the expectations and pressure of hanging out IRL. They’re both consumed with social anxiety so the fact that they don’t have to worry about what they look like or how they’re being perceived is a salve. In order to be a good emergency contact you need a lot of friend-patience and empathy. Often this comes from personal experience with anxiety, trauma, and depression. If you can relate to what another person is going through while giving their experience room to be its own discrete thing, you’re probably a crackerjack emergency contact.

  Clicking with and trusting people is something that’s very hard for Penny, yet it’s specifically distance that helps her relationship with Sam grow so strong. What role do you see social media and modern technology taking in the way we forge relationships now?

  It’s been interesting to me to get so many questions about how these two can become so close over text, as if to imply that somehow iMessage is inferior to phone calls or in-person meetings by dint of the conduit. It all has to do with the intent of the message and the circumstance. You’re absolutely right that Penny has serious trust and abandonment issues and they’re particular to her upbringing and also trauma in her past. The fact that Sam is a friend first where there aren’t complicated rules of engagement inherent in flirting or, and pardon the hoary word, but “courting”—where you fret about who texted who last and how long ago—fosters intimacy and trust in a safe space. It’s about her agency and that small but crucial barrier of Sam being available on her own terms—in her pocket but not in her face—that helps her let him in. For people who deal with anxiety or depression or can’t be in large social groups cognitively, emotionally, or even physically, phones help bridge the gap. On one hand people are always harping about catfishing, but there is a positive flip side to that of getting to know someone unencumbered by sometimes insurmountable challenges of what I call “meatspace.” I kind of skewer social media, though. Depending on my mood I sometimes think it’s an instrument of self-harm.

  I love that Penny’s an aspiring author, and that she discusses having grown up without seeing major authors and heroes who look like her. Obviously now she’d have Emergency Contact; what other recent and upcoming books would she be psyched to add to her shelf? What books and authors have been instrumental to you on yours?

  Oh, my goodness, I love this question. So I recently went to Teen BookCon and was just so geeked by the melanin quotient of the authors and readers. It was invigorating. Growing up I only had Claudia Kishi from The Babysitter’s Club or maybe Alison Monceau from Judy Blume’s Just As Long As We’re Together, who was adopted. Amy Tan is the G.O.A.T. but if I were filling Penny’s library I would include Dhonielle Clayton, Gloria Chao, Sabaa Tahir, Angie Thomas, Tomi Adeyemi, Marjorie Liu, Sandhya Menon, Marjane Satrapi, Junot Diaz, Celeste Ng, Octavia Butler. The thing is, Penny’s about a half-semester away from J.A., her writing professor, cracking her world wide open.

  I also really loved getting an eye on Penny’s work; there were definitely assignments she discussed that I was dying to see in their entirety! Any chance of seeing longer versions of those, or at least hearing more about them and their inspirations?

  I’ve often thought about how funny it would be to have a fishbowl play about the billionaire climate-change deniers who made their great escape from a dying planet earth only to be trapped aboard a spacecraft. I’ve also always wanted to write about a college entrance process so cutthroat you have to get away with literal murder in order to get in. It’s all inspired by the news. I’m constantly gobsmacked by the state of reality. If I see something, I add it to the list. I have this enormous note in my phone of ideas I find amusing or captivating for one reason or another. Who knows if any of it will see the light of day, but I would be shattered if I lost it or it got deleted. The other thing is the rapid obsolescence of speculative fiction. It’s like with every passing day what you thought was a dystopian future is very much the present, so half of my list is moot or pedestrian.

  Sexual assault is a major facet of Penny’s life experience, although it’s something both Penny and the reader are slow to realize. What was important to you to convey in Penny’s handling of her trauma?

  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. This has been examined a great deal with the #MeToo movement, but the liminal spaces of how wobbly consent can feel and the systemic bullying and even how men and women are hardwired to be at cross purposes with each other when it comes to sex has been incredibly eye-opening, but these aren’t things Penny would necessarily metabolize in the same way. That’s what I wanted to explore. Penny is so insular and doesn’t have a support system to help her navigate her feelings so she puts them all in a folder and shoves them in a deep recess of her brain. I wanted to imply that this happens. And that if this is what you’re doing that you’re not alone. I wanted to talk about sexual assault without assigning a value judgment to the way someone handles it.

  There’s definitely been a rise in college-set YA, but it’s always been somewhat controversial. What made you feel like YA was the place for Penny and especially older Sam, and what was getting it published like?

  The lovely thing about being completely green is that I didn’t know it was A THING to set a book in college. Every time I visit a college campus I’m floored by how young a college person is as opposed to how worldly and evolved I felt when I was a freshman. I loved exploring the age and definitely consulted Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl to see how to do it without cynicism. Simon & Schuster didn’t bat an eye, honestly. I remember one publisher asked me to slide everyone’s ages down a tad but I politely objected and ended up going with S&S because I loved my editor Zareen Jaffery so much when I talked to her.

  Between journalism and comic books and podcasting and more, you have experience in such a great variety of media. How do you feel each one, including your first novel, works to get your voice and message across in a different way?

  I will always be a little scattershot and peripatetic when it comes to the different little units of story I feel like making. I always have a lot of browser tabs open in my brain, so each sates a different type of hankering. Podcasts are immediate. We don’t tape live but I rarely edit. Comic books are all math! It’s like trying to write a pop song in terms of the rhythm particular to it. This novel was definitely the most polished of my work, and the freedom of being able to make things up is liberating. It’s a very different pacing for me. My publisher’s going to eye-roll when I say this, but<< this book isn’t for everyone>>. It’s a slow burn and it’s kind of like Seinfeld in that it’s a thing about nothing. There are very few car chases (none!). But it’s been so fun to work with this kind of restraint and have the real estate to build characters even if what they’re physically doing is tapping into a tiny machine with their thumbs in the dark. It’s all about interiorities and it’s rare that you can just sit inside a character’s head. Journalists try to do it when they’re writing magazine profiles but it’s not at all the same thing.

  What’s up next for you, and where else can we find you while we wait?

  I have more dates on my book tour in April. I’ll be at Texas Library Association, North Texas Teen Book Festival, LA Times Festival of Books, and I have an LA event with streetwear impresario and famous Korean Bobby Hundreds. I’ve also just finished a second novel and am working on a third. I really hope I get away with writing books forever.

  Emergency Contact is available now.

• Atlantic - https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/03/how-to-fall-in-love-over-text-emergency-contact-mary-h-k-choi/556517/

  How to Fall in Love Over Text
  To write her YA novel Emergency Contact, Mary H.K. Choi had to figure out how to render texts between teens without sounding corny.

  JULIE BECK
  MAR 27, 2018
  A graphic of Mary H.K. Choi surrounded by emojis
  AARON RICHTER / EMOJIPEDIA / KATIE MARTIN / THE ATLANTIC
  It’s a coincidence that Penny, the heroine of Mary H.K. Choi’s young-adult novel Emergency Contact, happens to be passing by as Sam, her local barista, is having his first panic attack. She gives him a ride, and her number, and tells him to text her when he gets home. He jokes that she’s his “emergency contact.”

  Even though their relationship starts with an actual emergency, as the book progresses, being emergency contacts starts to mean that they are each other’s default sounding board for the random stream-of-consciousness thoughts that cry out to be shared, even though they don’t need to be. Sam texts Penny asking for fashion advice; Penny texts Sam about how much she hates maraschino cherries. For the bulk of the book, Penny and Sam are not physically present with each other, but their relationship is built with the bricks of life’s minutiae, constructed line by line within the confines of their phones.

  Emergency Contact is a book about how relationships that begin as a collection of pixels can become capital-R Real—in the Velveteen Rabbit sense. It’s also about the vague and slippery rules of communication in the digital age that both help and hurt those relationships. I spoke with Choi—a journalist who’s written for a variety of outlets (including The Atlantic)—about what those rules are, how we pretend to know them when we really don’t, and how she managed to write texts for a pair of young adults without sounding like an out-of-touch old person.

  Julie Beck: Emergency Contact reminded me of the Wired article you did in 2016 where you embedded with different teens around the country to learn about their social-media habits. Was that the genesis of the idea?

  Mary H.K. Choi: It wasn’t the genesis. Emergency Contact, as far as it being a love story between these two people, was already a thing. But when I was reporting out that Wired story, I was thinking about what it meant to be able to imprint on someone via phone—how real that is and how intimate it is. With texting, it’s almost as if it’s a confessional. You end up divulging so much more than you would if you were staring into someone’s eyes.

  Sam has a moment where he’s revealing how he comes from zero money, and he’s so relieved that he can’t see judgment in Penny’s eyes. Those always perceptible but incalculable and fleeting micro-expressions where you can read that someone pities you or that they’re introducing some distance. That aspect of it not being there, I thought was interesting.

  The other thing was that I was in the process of falling headlong into a relationship with someone long distance. It had been so long since I’d felt that kind of excitement. We were in our 30s, but we were just giddy. I’ve never tapped in my phone so long that my battery completely ran out, before this relationship.

  Beck: You need to get one of those cases that has the charger.

  Choi: No, but girl, I’m talking about from sunup to night, locked and loaded with a Mophie case with a full charge. It felt like dry heaving, I was so spent by the end of it.

  The layer that no one wants to speak of is that there is always a threat of how staggeringly disappointing it could be when you meet in person. That’s a tension that underwrites all of it. So that, too, was obviously a really big part of the book. You worry if you’re on your phone just making promises that your actual self can never cash. That’s scary.

  Beck: Was there any particular thing you noticed about how you were communicating with this person, or how the teens that you were spending time with communicated, that crystallized for you what you wanted this book to be?

  Choi: The thing that really did directly inform this book, from that Wired article, was how much pressure there is. Jockeying for a popularity position has been a valorized teen tradition since the notion of a discrete teen stage of life was invented. But there’s this all-consuming worry for everything from climate change to unemployment to war. And they feel all of it, because of the immediacy of information in the 24-hour news cycle. I liken it to Spider-Man or any of these super humans who also are in high school, where it’s like: Save the world! But also math homework!

  They’re all lonely, there’s so much noise, and I wanted to focus on a story that was about being able to find your signal in all the noise. The notion of this “emergency contact” is: Do you have someone who is holding you down? Do you know where to go if you’re feeling bad? I keep likening it to assigning yourself a godparent of your choosing.

  Beck: I have this friend who I Gchat with all day every day, for probably seven or eight years now. It’s just very stream of consciousness during the day. But if almost anybody else were to contact me that much, I’d probably be annoyed. It seems like a unique sort of relationship, the one that’s very constant and very intimate but almost entirely digital. This friend I don’t see very much in person. I’m interested in the nature of that unique kind of relationship.

  Choi: There’s so much solace in just ... crap. The effluvia of life, where it’s like: “Hey what did you eat for lunch?” “God, what do I want for lunch?” The people who can answer the seemingly rhetorical question of “What do I want to eat?”—those are the special people. They should get a gold star, they should be recognized.

  Were Penny and Sam to never culminate in their first date on the last page, if that hadn’t happened, there is still a great beauty and poetry in their relationship which I don’t think people should be quick to dismiss. Because that’s incredibly valuable and rich. And not at all compromised by how many zeroes and ones comprise the framework of it.

  Beck: When I was a kid, I remember reading young-adult books that were written in epistolary email format, and I’ve seen some that are written entirely as texts or instant messages. I’m not going to name names, but some of them were truly awful. Like: “OMG U—letter U—won’t believe what Chad said in math class!” Just a parody of what old people think teens sound like. And yours feels very natural. How did you think about what kind of tone you wanted for Penny and Sam’s texts?

  Choi: Us olds are so corny. Teens are otherized extensively, exhaustively. Spending time with real teens proved, as it usually does, that they’re such regular people. They have all the same insecurities and complicated feelings and awareness of where their understanding stalls out and how that scares them.

  So I didn’t want that whole, “Oh my gah, na na na.” I really wanted it to feel like a conversation. If you do lean on text to do the heavy lifting in terms of creating a safe and intimate space for them, it had to not feel like text. I liken it to eating Doritos, where there is no satiation. You keep forgetting with each triangle you’ve ingested that you’ve had a Dorito. They are divulging things that are uncomfortable to them. And I didn’t want anything to bring you out of that.

  MORE STORIES

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  DEBORAH TANNEN
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  Beck: There’s a super interesting paradox about texting that I’ve been thinking about lately. The medium creates a lot of opportunities for anxiety, like if someone isn’t getting back to you fast enough, or if you’re watching that little “dot dot dot” ripple or whatever—but at the same time we prefer to communicate this way. Americans text more than they call, and texting is the primary form of communication for most people, especially younger generations. Why do you think that is?

  Choi: Texting is incredibly anxiety-laden. But I know people who will have a full-blown panic attack if you call them. I’m one of those nightmare humans where the little mailbox has an ellipsis on it because I have 1000 unread emails. So texting is the most immediate yet least anxious of all the incredibly anxious ways that we talk to each other.

  Beck: It seems like we’re willing to trade that anxiety for a sense of control over the interaction. It feels easier to manage relationships asynchronously, or from a distance. Penny and Sam, for example, do feel more comfortable with each other in text format, at least at first. Do you think that’s because they feel more in control of what they’re saying that way?

  Choi: For sure. But the one incredibly important distinction that they make very early on—and I do think this is the bedrock of their mutual trust—is that they always text back when they want to. It just sucks when you’re texting someone and for some reason every time you text them there’s a four-hour lag. Of course, sometimes you’re not going to be able to hit the other one back immediately. But for these guys, not only is it incredibly even in terms of who prompts the conversation, there is such a haphazardness to when they hit each other back that feels sincere. That, to me, is the greatest gift you can give to a texting person.

  When you start thinking about response times—or “Ellipsis, silence, ellipsis, silence, ellipsis, silence”—you just want to die. And probably the worst is a read receipt, and then silence.

  Beck: Leaving read receipts on is a questionable choice.

  Choi: Yeah, it’s like a sociopath. Why would you do that to people?

  Beck: Part of the problem is you don’t know the degree to which it’s a red flag or just someone who’s not technologically inclined and doesn’t know all the complicated rules.

  Choi: Penny is so trusting with such a tiny social circle that she has wallpaper push notifications for her texts. That’s insane to me.

  Beck: Where the full text appears on the lock screen, as opposed to saying “Message from so-and-so”?

  Choi: Yeah.

  Beck: Oh, mine definitely come up on the screen.

  Choi: I feel like that means you’re a good person. A friend of mine recently got married. His messages come up on the screen, and I was like: “Wow that surprises me, I thought I knew you.” And he was like: “No one shady is texting me. It might be a work thing, but who’s gonna see it but my wife and my squalling baby? I’ve never felt freer.” I think that’s really beautiful.

  Beck: I feel like I have slightly less beautiful motivations. I can’t stand the little red bubble that says one unread text, so I have to read it. But then I don’t always reply right away and I forget. So if I can just read it on the main screen, I don’t have to go into the app and open it.

  Choi: Yeah, not me, I have to bank everything, otherwise, there’s too many tabs open in my brain. I’ll just be a pinwheel of death, if things come to me as they come to me.

  Also just, existentially, why are we like this?

  Beck: I don’t know.

  Choi: This can’t actually be what we’re calling stasis. This can’t be our neutral setting. This is too crazy.

  Beck: But it is our neutral setting.

  Choi: It is now. And it burns. But it’s also fine. I keep picturing the dog in the hat in the burning house: This is fine.

  Beck: He is our mascot for this age. It’s strange—texting really has become part of the fabric of our lives. But at the same time, it’s also a space apart from that. It’s a regular part of Penny and Sam’s lives. But they still draw a distinction between phonespace and meatspace, as you call it. Sam at one point even says that he wouldn’t know what to do if Penny just came out of his phone. Because she’s contained there.

  Choi: You never feel meatspace as hardcore as high school. There are so many indicators of hierarchies and pecking orders, and so there’s this system to meatspace in high school. With college it’s loosey goosier. Except for the fact that popularity definitely does persist throughout our lives. It’s why celebrity is a thing. Granted, Sam is older than Penny is, but he’s more popular and it’s kind of empirical. Penny feels like their relationship couldn’t even exist in meatspace, because it’s so contrary to the natural order of the universe. The interface is the great equalizer. Texting does become a sort of neutral safe space.

  I wanted to prove that the relationships you forge in these beaded curtains of DMs and texts and stuff aren’t in your imagination, and that being gaslit into believing that somehow isn’t real is unfair. I want to make the argument that it’s all real life.

  Beck: What it seems like to me is adding or removing layers of context. In the book, every time Penny and Sam have some kind of new communication, moving from texting to phone calls or seeing each other in person, they call it “escalating.” You wouldn’t have as many levels to escalate up through in the past because it was only phone or in person and that’s it. Now that we do have all these options for how to communicate with people, do you think there’s a more complex etiquette for how to escalate through these levels?

  Choi: Of course. The thing that’s tricky and slippery about it is that while it’s subjective, we somehow can’t talk about it. The thing that really sucks, and this is something I talked to the teens about, is this staring match of refusing to be the one to ask a question. It’s this word, that they and we use a lot, which is “awkward.” You don’t want to be the awkward one. We have all these conversations about consent and stuff but it’s still really, deeply uncool not to know the rules. So I think we’re all going around pretending we know the rules. There are a lot of intricacies now to whatever we’re calling courtship, or even friendship. I think it’s sad when people can’t talk about it.

  Beck: It also seems like, in a weird way, we’ve grown more polite by adding all these different rules and different mediums. No one wants to put an obligation on someone else. You’re like, “Oh I won’t call them because it’s so rude of me to want my friend to carve out 15 minutes to talk to me.” So you text instead. And it’s kind of sad.

  Choi: It always reminds me of the Looney Tunes [gophers]. You know how they’re standing on either side of a little doorway and prompting the other one to go in first? They keep being like “No, no, after you,” and it’s this politeness reverb that never ends. I feel like if I could eliminate the preamble to correspondence that accompanies every layer of the interface I would save countless hours a week.

  In fact, I recently started doing phone calls and actually putting my foot down about it. Insisting that we do 10-to-15-minute phone calls instead of playing this rigmarole of email games, because I just can’t take it anymore.

  This isn’t something I learned until I was much older, but relying on someone else breeds a kind of intimacy. There is so much focus on being self-sufficient and it makes it very difficult to ask for things. I’ve been crippled by this notion of high-functioning self-sufficiency. And I see it a lot in younger girls. Asking for help brings people closer in a way that I suspected but didn’t actually put into practice. And you can ask for that to be delivered to you in meatspace, or in any realm that you so see fit. I think that’s a really important way to know yourself: to know how you would like your information and how you would like your intimacies delivered to you, and to be able to ask for them.

• New York Times - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/03/style/mary-hk-choi-wanted-to-write-a-book-in-which-high-key-nothing-happens.html

  Mary H.K. Choi Wanted to Write a
  Book in Which ʻHigh-Key Nothing
  Happensʼ
  But actually a lot happens, including conversations about sexual assault, communication and
  what it means to be someoneʼs “Emergency Contact” — the title of her book.
  By Joanna Nikas and Tracy Ma
  April 3, 2018
  Illustration by The New York Times; Photograph by Phil Chang
  Mary H.K. Choi has wanted to write a novel basically her whole life. “It took me a long time to
  admit that to myself,” she said a day after her first book, the young-adult novel “Emergency
  Contact,” was published.
  Instead, she wrote some hilarious pieces including one about how teenagers use social media (for
  Wired), why you should “shut up about your cheat day” (GQ) and about a time she tried weed
  vaporizers (The Atlantic).
  Now her timing seems exceptionally apt. Young-adult books like “Children of Blood and Bone,” by
  Tomi Adeyemi, are leading and shaping discussions on race, class, sexual consent and a lot more.
  “I’m so new to this space, but I love how many women of color and minorities there are within,”
  5/17/2018 Mary H.K. Choi Wanted to Write a Book in Which ‘High-Key Nothing Happens’ - The New York Times
  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/03/style/mary-hk-choi-wanted-to-write-a-book-in-which-high-key-nothing-happens.html 2/4
  Ms. Choi said.
  Ms. Choi was inspired in part by a classic of the genre, “Forever,” by Judy Blume. “She said she
  just wanted to write a story about ʻtwo people who have sex but <>’”
  Ms. Choi said. “I love that.” Her very 21st-century update: two young people who are using
  technology as a way of getting to know each other, in a long-distance relationship where “highkey
  nothing happens.”
  We hosted a “Cyber Chat” with Ms. Choi, where our Twitter followers asked her questions. Ankur
  Thakkar asked: How easy (or difficult) was it to find a book agent? Priyanka Bose asked: How
  long did it take you from when you first came up with the idea for Emergency Contact to the final
  submitted draft? And Renée Kaplan asked: Why Y.A.?
  Read Ms. Choi’s responses (we’ve included some in here.)
  So what is “Emergency Contact” about?
  It’s primarily about a friendship that blossoms into something more. And most of the action
  happens in text. It’s a story about interiority, anxiety and mental health. Trigger warning,
  because there are references to sexual assault, as well. So it’s kind of just like a really heady
  conversation between two people who just imprint on each other. It’s a very small and considered
  story. That is the type of storytelling that I wanted to examine and the way I friendship.
  You have said th
  5/17/2018 Mary H.K. Choi Wanted to Write a Book in Which ‘High-Key Nothing Happens’ - The New York Times
  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/03/style/mary-hk-choi-wanted-to-write-a-book-in-which-high-key-nothing-happens.html 3/4
  With texting too. It’s like if you’re super-busy that day and you’re running around doing all this
  crazy stuff and haven’t checked your phone for one reason or another because you’re in class or
  you’re at work and then you look at your phone and your person has left you a little treat, like a
  funny little anecdote almost like a gift-wrap parcel of affection that regardless of where this
  person is in a time-space that they’re thinking of you. And that’s really, really nice.
  And you’ve talked about the diversity that exists in the Y.A. space. Tell me more about that.
  I don’t know if it’s particular to the political climate, or just where the conversation is, and I don’t
  know if it’s new or it’s been there for a while because I’m so new to this space. But I really love
  that black women are dominating the Y.A. best-seller chart. It is really, really awesome. And with
  that it just does give me a little bit of hope, and it does really encourage me to take these small
  defiant steps that I am, where I will make my lead a woman of color.
  I will get truculent and really outraged if people try to cast white people in these roles that I’m
  making up. I really do think that every little bit helps and every little bit counts. The difference
  between doing something and not doing something is immense, even though it feels small.
  I love how sort of wise but exhausted women are right now. I find it strangely reassuring, and
  when I see women in places where I feel like a minority — and especially women of color who
  have an appreciation for intersectionality and representation and like double- and triple- and
  whatever consciousness from having had to navigate monocultures, when I see people like that
  represented I’m immediately relieved.
  The book addresses things that teens and young adults deal with every day, like sexual assault,
  what it means to be a true friend, anxiety and depression. What are some lessons?
  So my therapist, because I’ve struggled with eating disorders, was like, “I really want you to find
  a dietitian. I’m like, ʻBut why, I’ve personally decided that I’m in remission.’ And he’s like, sure,
  but it’s about knowing who that person is that can help you out with this problem when you need
  them, because when you need them you’re not going to have all your faculties about you and
  you’re not going to be in a position to then start looking for this person. So just have that person in
  place and make sure you like them.
  5/17/2018 Mary H.K. Choi Wanted to Write a Book in Which ‘High-Key Nothing Happens’ - The New York Times
  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/03/style/mary-hk-choi-wanted-to-write-a-book-in-which-high-key-nothing-happens.html 4/4
  And that’s kind of my takeaway. It’s almost like assigning yourself a godparent of your choosing,
  where if you really fall apart and things get really bad, and maybe your family can’t help you for
  one reason or another — either their love is conditional or you’re in a position where you’re taking
  care of them or whatever. You should know who your emergency contact is preferably before you
  really need them.
  A lot of times as women we pre-emptively feel like we can’t ask for help, but those emergencycontact
  friends are so important.
  I mean, it seems counter to self-sufficiency to be like, “I have a friend who I check in with every
  time I get on the plane and every time I get off a plane, or “I have a friend who literally knows
  everywhere I’m going. If I’m going on a date with someone.”
  These are all really important. They might seem small in the moment, but they make you feel
  better about a lot of things. I mean, we all know what, like, microaggressions are but there are
  things like micro-traumas too, and sometimes just leaning on someone who’s so happy to be
  leaned on for you, it just alleviates something.
  It’s so, so hard to be a person in the world who does no harm to others or themselves, and all of
  these little tiny moments really help you out. I think women just like looking out for each other,
  and humbly offering tiny assistances is wonderful. I think the sort of cumulative effect of that is
  that everyone gets a bit stronger and feels a lot more secure. And I think that’s really important.

• Refinery 29 - https://www.refinery29.com/2018/03/194645/emergency-contact-mary-hk-choi-author-interview

  Refinery29NOW READING
  "Emergency Contact" Is A Millennial Must-Read

  If You've Ever Been In A Texting Relationship, This Novel Is For You
  ELENA NICOLAOU
  MARCH 28, 2018, 12:35 PM

  Some of the most passionate, vigorous, honest conversations I’ve ever had have been in late-night texting bursts, and I know I'm not alone. In her YA book Emergency Contact, Mary H.K. Choi doesn’t just acknowledge this aspect of modern communication, and move on to glorify “in real life” bonding. She celebrates love, as it’s created now — phone pings and all. The book's alternating narrators, Penny, a gloomy Korean American college freshman with dreams of becoming a writer, and Sam, a tattooed college dropout who works in a bakery, get to know each other over text and on the phone before finally, gloriously, awkwardly crossing over to IRL.
  Choi, a journalist and Vice correspondent, is uniquely suited to tell the story of Penny and Sam and life as it's lived now. In 2016, after she’d already completed the first draft of Emergency Contact, Choi took a deep dive into how teens really interact with social media for a blockbuster Wired article. That experience, paired with a texting romance of her own, prompted Choi to radically revise the book, and incorporate the texting excerpts that make Emergency Contact so acutely relatable.
  I spoke to Choi about technology, the state of young adult literature – and the adorable reason why Sam is named Sam. A warning: You will swoon.

  We watch Penny and Sam engage with many different version of each other. They get to know each other texting, then over the phone, then in personal. We all have so many different selves now. How do you think we find our real self — and is one medium more true than others?
  In this book, I didn’t want to introduce a notion when there’s a hierarchy, when IRL is superior, and texting is trash. I do think texting is incredible intimate. My group chats hold me down but Twitter makes me crazy. These are very, very real things that we negotiate on a day-to-day basis. I was in a long distance relationship for a while, and it reminded me of middle school and high school, where you talked to someone on the phone and it was like a freakin’ party. You were divulging your soul to each other. I was in this long distance thing and we were texting so hard that even with my Mophie pack on my phone, I’d run through two batteries laughing with this person and creating inside jokes. This is the headiest and most intimate thing. It was sort of an experience I wanted to write about.
  What your book does so well is catch up to modern courtship in a way that a lot of pop culture hasn’t. You don’t just glorify in-person chemistry. There’s texting chemistry, too. And that’s a very real thing.
  You actually assume this level of sophistication for text chemistry. There is a pressure if someone says something very meaningful, even if it takes you a second to think of a response that matches that mood, you’ll take the time to do that. You’ll be thoughtful about it. It does create a certain degree of pressure.
  I liked playing with Penny and Sam on all these different platforms and interfaces. It’s kind of like when you’re reading a word and you don’t need the vowels. The human mind is capable of filling in so many spaces. I like the phenomenon of Penny and Sam plugging in all the pixels and creating an immersive 360 world of this other person. The more compiling they do, the more puzzle pieces they have. The more monomers. They can create a more ornate tapestry of their understanding of another person. Everyone’s always saying that there are too many distractions, and everyone has ADD, there’s not attention span, everything’s very surface and glossy and very flat. Definitely there is a part of that. But there is something wonderful in the synaptic nimbleness with which people nowadays can plug in all these holes and create a pretty accurate whole other person.

  The book was not a cynical look at the way we interact with our phones.
  It’s actually an elegant phenomenon. To fall in love with the portal of your phone. But there are parts of it that really, really suck. Your browser can be an instrument for self harm in a big way. When Penny and Sam are apart and the portal closes, and Penny is left wondering about Sam, social media becomes a thing of hell.
  There’s a big difference in the book between interpersonal communication through texting and and the way characters interact with social media, which is quite the opposite — inferring and extrapolating, not communicating.
  Totally. And speaking of interpreting — there is no hell more special and nuanced and designed to torment you specifically than the Instagram Discover page of any given topic: 'This is what fries should look like. This is what love should look like. This is what sunsets should look like. This is what vacation should look like.’ Once you have that very — and this point, highly stylized ideal – you start pitting yourself against that. Lorraine [Sam’s highly Instagrammable ex-girlfriend] is a mess, and she’s selfish, and she's clearly very wounded. But Penny doesn’t think about that when she’s lurking on her. She’s just like, let me just keep bludgeoning myself with the myriad ways that I fall short of this person, who I don’t know.
  Penny seems like the kind of girl who’d be above Instagram, but none of us are.
  Exactly. I grew up at a time when magazine retouching was a scandal. This was very early in my formative years. Now we know that a certain amount of suspension of disbelief happens for this image to be what it is. We all know about Facetuning, we all know about filters. Even just angles. Back in the day, you just said prune and stand with your arm on your hip with a three quarter turn. That was the trick, and that was on the only thing we had. Now there are so many bells and whistles. While Penny knows about all these things intellectually, it’s still emotionally terrible.
  I loved the cadence of Penny and Sam’s texts. I wonder if you were trying to create texts the way young people talk, or the way you’re more familiar with. Is there a distinction between the way 18-year-olds text and older peopledo?
  There’s a huge distinction. My greatest fear is that someone was going to look at that texting dialogue and say oh, this is so washed, because it doesn’t use abbreviations. That was a deliberate thing on my part. Kind of like the way technology looks ridiculous in sci-fi movies by the time it comes out — ‘LOL, that brick cell phone, or LOL that’s not an operating system that anyone would use.’ I didn’t want to make technology that was really to the moment.
  The Faustian Bargain was: I had to ask my audience to forgive me for being old as hell. I was going to make this snappy and glossy, and not the way teens speak. Because that would be so embarrassing and awkward.
  Did you always foresee being a novelist?
  It’s always been a dream of mine, but it’s been a quiet dream. I always hedged my bets. In college, I wanted to be a fashion designer, but I majored in textiles and apparel for merchandising because it was dream adjacent. In the same way, I always loved magazines very very much, and I’ve been an editor and a magazine writer for most of my career.
  I think I was waiting for someone to anoint me with the agency to write the novel. I’d had some invitations based on some op-eds to do a nonfiction book, but the fiction thing felt so elusive to me, and I felt like it ran parallel to the path that I was on, and I couldn’t close the gap until I just sat down and wrote the entire thing. It required so much faith. I’ve been a freelance journalist for a long time too. When you can enumerate the amount of time that you’re not getting paid on anything because you’re doing all this work on spec, that was so hard. I really didn’t believe in myself nearly enough to finish a novel and I don’t know what that testifies too. I’ve always been really responsible and I’ve always had a very high savings ratio. I’ve been a sellsword in terms of the jobs I’d take. I took a break for three months for the second rewrite of this book and that was really, really scary. I don’t know if I’d be able to do it if I was any younger. It really took me my entire life to get here, despite knowing I’d wanted to be a novelist my whole life.
  So you felt empowered to become novelist now, not only because you felt like you had the capabilities, but because you could take the leap of faith in terms of putting your life and finances on hold?
  I had to choose this thing that felt nebulous and completely delusional the whole time. With your first novel, once you get the first draft down, it becomes evidence. The proof of burden that you can write a first book lies entirely with you and the way you spend your time. It took a lot. There are so many distractions that you’d rather be doing than sitting in the dark, doing the Running Man by yourself, based on this completely asinine premise that you have a deep-rooted suspicion, apropos of nothing, that you’re an author, but secretly. It makes you feel insane. As someone who spent their whole career judging other people, now I’m like, anyone who makes anything ever is a genius and I respect you and your parents did a great job. I have so much respect for everyone right now.
  Your role as a reporter has changed now that you’re an author as well.
  Absolutely. I talked with another writer who’s also a critic, and we were talking about that. I do think that it’s a different experience for everyone, and a different lesson for everyone. I’m loathe to deploy the word journey, but I think that’s the thing about writing this book that has been really illuminating. How humbling it is. This is the best I was capable of at a certain time. Hopefully I’ll get better. Hopefully my output and my taste level will join at some point. Maybe when I’m like 65. But like, the fact that I’m putting my name in the hat and throwing down the gauntlet that I want to edge towards being better in this field feels like a crazy thing to do.
  The other day you tweeted that you love writing about Asians. What was it like switching back between Penny and 23-year-old white guy with a sleeve? What mental acrobatics did that require?
  It was a pleasure to write from the inside of a Korean girl. One of the priorities for me was to make Celeste, her mother, not a tiger mom. I wanted her to be the statistics you read about how all Asian kids are doing ecstasy, and how they’re all nightmares at Coachella. Kind of like Jason in The Good Place. Jason and Celeste are a team.
  In terms of flitting back and forth between Sam and Penny. I’ve had people be like, I always forget that Sam is white. And I think that is really interesting and awesome. At the end of the day, in the same way representation on screen and in the writers room and all these perspectives create a more well rounded world and nuanced characters, you’ve got these one trick ponies who are in all the writers rooms and they write Black women a certain way, they write Asian women a certain way — but they also write white guys a certain way. White guys can be such stock character types. Especially when they’re written by the same dudes, basically, writing about what they know. I really like that as an Asian woman writing this German Polish kid in Texas — I love being able to do that. It wasn’t challenging for me to flip back and forth between the two of them. I think that’s the point. I’m just writing two people. And not to be like, I don’t see creed or color, but their flesh suits are pretty incidental. Not only because of the texting nature of their relationship. But because of this moment in time when they’re at. That’s incredibly privileged.
  Writing an Asian person who’s writing Asian people is really interesting, too. Penny originally was half white. And I was like: Why did I do that? Don’t do that. She’s full Korean, and she’s raised by her mother, and her dad’s a deadbeat, and guess what? He’s also Korean. Koreans come in deadbeat flavors also. I loved being inside of Penny as she was figuring out whether or not she was allowed to write about Asian people.
  I spoke to another YA author who said that growing up, all of her characters were half black, or white, because she never read YA books with characters who looked like her. It seems like YA has come a long way — I’d never read a book like Emergency Contact when I was a kid.
  That’s why YA fucking rules. The leaps and bounds people are making within this particular field — even just the conversations happening with young people about the importance of sensitivity reading. Just now, being in this space through the lens of someone who understands this space a little bit better, there are some languages and turns of phrases that make me say, I need to be better about that. Or, this is pretty ableist. [In the book] I blithely mention how Sam looks depressive and it’s kind of hot cause he’s brooding. Now I’m like — woah, depression really sucks, and I’ve grappled with it myself. It’s a pretty throwaway way to describe someone as attractive, and that’s lazy. There are things that I’m learning in this space, too. I’m grateful for that. I feel like it’s a huge responsibility to talk to young people and I don’t sit there thinking that only 18-year-olds will read me. I know there are a lot of different kinds of audiences. But I know it’s an enormous privilege to speak with younger people.
  How did you name the characters?
  Penelope Lee has always been Penelope Lee. It’s euphonic to me.
  This is really, really messed up, but Sam is the name of my ‘person.’ The long distance relationship that was happening when I was doing the rewrite. His name is Sam. It was a placeholder name for a long time, and then I imprinted on this other Sam to the point when I couldn’t dream of calling the character anything else. It felt so fraudulent. To think of him as Sam the whole time I was writing it, and thinking I would change the name at the end like a find word function, and replace it with Fred. I can’t even think of a guy’s name.
  Are you still dating him?
  Yeah.
  So is Sam your Sam?
  They’re super different. But of course, because we’re carpet bagging gremlins, I did sniff off a lock of hair and a double helix of DNA and peppered it through the book’s Sam.
  What a good twist.
  He’s the best. There are times when I read this book, and it’s so imbued with so much love I have for the Sam in my life that — sometimes I’ll cry.
  A double love story.
  It really is. It’s a love story on all the levels. It’s millennial pink, and it’s meta. Basically, I’m the grossest human being in the world.
  Read These Stories Next:
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• NPR - https://www.npr.org/2018/04/29/606382240/in-emergency-contact-finding-a-safe-space-in-texts

  In 'Emergency Contact,' Finding A Safe Space In Texts
  April 29, 20188:10 AM ET
  Heard on Weekend Edition Sunday

  LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO

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  Emergency Contact
  Emergency Contact
  by Mary H. K. Choi

  Hardcover, 394 pages purchase

  How do we find a real connection in a digital world?

  In Mary H.K. Choi's debut novel, Emergency Contact, Penny and Sam strike up a text-based romance, and soon become take-your-phone-to-the-bathroom inseparable. But for different reasons, they have trouble making it real.

  "At the start, Penny, who is a Korean-American person, is going off to college," Choi says, "and Sam is in the throes of the worst breakup, he's kind of homeless-adjacent, and he's dealing with a lot of anxiety and panic." The two have what Choi calls a "meet-harrowing" when Penny rescues Sam, who's having a panic attack in the street.

  Interview Highlights
  On the significance of an emergency contact

  It's that you have someone holding down. And it might not be the person you thought it would be, in terms of like — it might not be your parent, it might not be your caregiver, it might not even be, I guess, the most orthodox definition of who your bestie is. It could be just someone else, who makes the world feel like a safer space. It's like the tether to the space ship when you're kind of free-fall floating out in outer space. And I really liked the idea, too, of that being someone who lives inside your phone. Because you have that person in your, you know, literal back pocket. But it's unencumbered by all this pressure of like, how you look, how they look, is it romantic, am I funny enough, is that person thinking about how my hair is greasy, do I have a zit? It doesn't have all of the stress of that, especially if you're like, cognitively a little bit atypical, and you struggle with different visual cues or timing for who's speaking next. I find texting to be kind of a safe space.

  On tackling the issues teens face

  Stumbling (And Texting) Toward Love In 'Emergency Contact'
  BOOK REVIEWS
  Stumbling (And Texting) Toward Love In 'Emergency Contact'
  The thing that I find interesting about teens now is that no matter how desperate we seem to be taxonomically othering them, for one reason or another — because the Internet, because whatever — I feel like a lot of the benchmarks and the experiences are, you know, same for teens through time immemorial. And I wanted an old-school teen story that still had technology and felt very very contemporary, but with a lot of the sort of bigger themes that are very real. Because teens now, it's this dual thing where they're super-precocious because they're so good at the Internet, and they're like YouTube billionaires, or they're hopeless and they're depressed and anxiety-ridden and overmedicated. And I wanted to give them credit, and I wanted to let them know that they're seen in some way.

  On including sexual assault in Penny's past

  I wanted an old-school teen story that still had technology and felt very very contemporary, but with a lot of the sort of bigger themes that are very real.

  Mary H.K. Choi

  People have described Emergency Contact as funny, and while it is really, really funny in moments, I always kind of want to throw an asterisk on that, because to your point, there should be a trigger warning to this book about the sexual assault in it, and Penny has an experience where — she's like me, she's an indoor cat. She's very into climate conditioning, she loves the Internet, and she has a lot of social issues outside, and so she befriends someone who is a trusted person. And basically he betrays that trust and sexually assaults her, and for a long long time, her brain can't compute that. And I feel like, if someone is exposed to the #MeToo movement, or [Harvey] Weinstein or Bill Cosby through the Internet, and if someone is in a position of seeing what they think sexual trauma looks like, or what the right type of victim is, it can be really confusing about how to define their own experiences.

  And I had a personal experience where, for a long, long time, I was gaslighting myself into thinking that one experience was not as big a deal as I thought it was ... and it was really, really painful, because there was just a discord. And I was thinking about how there's so much conversation about mutually affirmative consent, and we all know the language and we all know the the conversations, but in each moment, when it's just two people and you're wildly inexperienced, you don't know what that's supposed to feel like a lot of the time. And I wanted to introduce some of that ambiguity back in a blameless way, where I wanted it to be for Penny to admit that she was sexually assaulted, and I wanted her to be OK with the fact that she did not want to tell anyone, because I do think that there are situations in which you feel pressured to do one thing or another ... I'm not saying that you shouldn't say anything. But what I'm saying is that you don't have to be any type of person in that moment, because you are absolutely blameless.

  This story was produced for radio by Samantha Balaban and Ed McNulty, and adapted for the Web by Petra Mayer.

• Nylon - https://nylon.com/articles/mary-hk-choi-emergency-contact-interview

  Talking With Mary H.K. Choi About Teens And Texting
  ‘Emergency Contact’ is out now
  BY KRISTIN IVERSEN · MARCH 28, 2018
  Talking With Mary H.K. Choi About Teens And TextingSave
  PHOTO BY HATNIM LEE

  "It sort of reminded me of marathon phone conversations that I had as a little kid, like when I was making a new friend and had that three-hour brain dump where you feel like you disgorged your entire guts," Mary H.K. Choi tells me over the phone, explaining how a "pretty torrid and epic text relationship," in which she would routinely deplete her entire phone battery ("easy to do on an iPhone," she points out), served as inspiration for the intimate texting relationship between Penny and Sam, the protagonists of her debut novel Emergency Contact. Choi says, "I wanted to write a book that sort of captured that feeling, and I also had the immediacy of being in this long-distance relationship to draw upon."

  Long-distance or not and romantic or not, many relationships today rely on texting as a main form of communication, and yet this mode of talking with one another is often dismissed as being inferior, and lacking a "realness" that things like phone calls or face-to-face conversations are thought to possess inherently. This line of thinking, though, speaks to a circumscribed view of the world, one which hasn't expanded to include all the different ways in which people can make a difference in each other's lives. In Emergency Contact, Penny and Sam are both dealing with a myriad of their own issues, but they become one another's emergency contacts, and soon enough grow to rely on the other, not just in case of emergency but also in order to share the banalities of their lives, those small and beautiful thoughts and moments that make up our lived experience.

  Below, I talk with Choi about the novel, why texting is a great method of communicating, and how the teens are going to be alright.

  One thing that strikes me about this book is that it serves as a counter-argument to all the people who think that digital forms of communication mean that relationships between young people are less "real" than they used to be in the past. I've heard people say that's why so much fiction is set in the recent past, because then they don't need to deal with texting and other modern forms of communication.
  Yeah, you're right. It's funny because I wrote this article for Wired where I embedded with a bunch of high school age kids to talk to them <> only because the conversation that rises to the top, in terms of clickbait and morning news, tends to be alarmist and monolithic, and about how teens are either in, like, mortal peril or they're, like, these cognitive geniuses who know everything. My experience with them, talking to them and asking them these analog questions about identity and relatability, I was like, Oh no, teens are... teens. And similarly, I've been getting the question of the hierarchy of communication, as if it's this finite goal we're all moving toward, like IRL, a form of touch-based intimacy. I think that's really skewed. It also omits people for whom touch-based intimacy isn't even a thing, because they're either asexual or just have trouble with that or don't want that. I know that getting a DM lurk or having someone sliding into your DMs and try to say some swift shit is inferior to a hug or a text that you get from someone you love or someone that you're super-invested in, but the fact that Penny and Sam are talking through text shows that it has everything to do with the person and the circumstance and how you feel about them, and that's been true of any human experience regardless of the methodology of how we're speaking to each other.

  People's perceptions are really limited to their own experiences though. It's sort of like the way people talk about New York City, where the best NYC is always the one they were in when they were 22. And it's just so weird and narrow-minded and nostalgic in this way that doesn't at all account for how people continue to live and adapt and connect.
  I think technology is this weird thing where, if you look at it objectively, it feels like this far away thing or you experience dissonance about the way you perceive it, but you use technology every day, and you think the way you use it is different from the way you either think other people use it or the way you think it's seen. And I always find that really interesting too. A lot of people are asking me things like, "How did you create such a real and nuanced dialogue between these two people even when it's through text?" And I'm like, "In the same way you text people, you love in your actual waking life." And they're like, "Oh yeah, totally." Maybe it's an age thing, I don't know. And perhaps it's more seamless for those of us who have just known the screen for a really long time.

  The way some people are weird about technology is also related to how some people view teenagers. It's especially interesting right now, when there's this huge priority placed on either celebrating teenage activists or trying to tear them down, but also so frequently forgetting that these are just teenagers. They're not aliens, they're people.
  Totally. I think the one wonderful thing technology has afforded us is that there really isn't a notion of precociousness in terms of what you're interested in or what you know because the news—and just the internet—has made it so that information is readily available to all of us. And so the only difference is that perhaps younger people don't have the same coping mechanisms we do, as older people, only because of a lack of experience and only because maybe they can't afford the therapist they want before they finally break down and get one in their 30s. Prior to the 1950s, we never thought of teens as this other group, they were just shorter adults or whatever, and now we're kind of going back to a certain aspect of that, where it's like their capabilities aren't at all limited or specific to a certain age group or a finite age period. It's sort of presumed that the older you get, you're moving toward some finite goal or enlightenment, and it's not like that. It's not linear, none of it is.

  What do you like about writing YA fiction?
  I think the one great privilege inherent in writing for young people isn't that their opinions aren't formed or that they're like jelly; it's not that at all. It's not about placing your world view upon someone else. It's actually that they're growing up with all this information available to them, and younger people are so wavy and so incredibly, humblingly expansive, and so you have these conversations happening within YA about intersectionality, where the different layers of privilege and the many layers of the solidity of identity and gender and all of these issues are being explored at a lightning pace and really organically, and on a person-to-person basis.

  I think the conversations teens are having are so smart and moving and important and it's great to see that reflected. Sometimes, I think, it can feel a little forced, or sound like an adult is trying to voice their thoughts and feelings through a teenage mouthpiece. But Emergency Contact doesn't feel that way at all.
  I definitely didn't want to have any sort of preciousness with these characters or any sort of head-patting, self-congratulatory thing. I think, if you honor your characters by making them as honest as possible to what resonates with you, regardless of how old you are, I think that that tends to work. It was really important for me, as a fan of contemporary YA and as a huge fan of authors like Nicola Yoon and Rainbow Rowell, to have a tenderness. There's so much brutality in the way that we speak to each other on the internet, an anonymity that prompts this kind of harshness. I wanted people to just be nice to each other, and I know that sounds denuded, and that's not kind of what I mean. It's more like, even when it's hard or even when you argue or stand up for yourself, I wanted to show people being tender, and a little bit careful, and that is completely from my personal experiences, because I am always accused of having a certain degree of solemnity to the way that I'm a friend, I always have. I take it really seriously and I feel like loyalty is serious and being available is an honor and asking for a favor is a sign of trust and intimacy, so these are the things that I really wanted to talk about... and to hear that I've even remotely succeeded in that is incredibly heartening.

  Emergency Contact is available for purchase here.

• Lily - https://www.thelily.com/emergency-contact-author-mary-hk-choi-wonders-are-we-having-the-right-conversations-about-race/

  ‘Emergency Contact’ author Mary H.K. Choi wonders: Are we having the right conversations about race?
  Her book tackles Asian American stereotypes

  ‘Emergency Contact’ author Mary H.K. Choi wonders: Are we having the right conversations about race?
  (Hatnim Lee for The Lily)
  Carol Shih
  March 29
  This article is part of the Lily Lines newsletter. You can sign up here to get it delivered twice a week to your inbox.

  Mary H.K. Choi doesn’t drink coffee. “It makes my eye twitch and it makes me doubt myself faster,” she says, cradling a mug of tea between her hands. A plaid trapper hat tops her two thick pigtails — the kind of look that inspires hashtags like “hygge.” We’re sitting near the window inside Cafe Grumpy, with a perfect view of Brooklyn getting smothered by a fluke March snowstorm.

  Laptops aren’t allowed, so we’re doing what two people do when there’s zero WiFi: talk.

  She’s good these days. Really good.

  “I tweeted about this recently. I was like, ‘I’m really, really happy to be Asian, writing about Asians moving around the world, looking out of Asian eyeholes,’” says Choi. “Because it took me a long time to get home.”

  The 38-year-old culture correspondent at Vice News Tonight and podcast host of "Hey, Cool Job” is finally comfortable sitting with her feelings these days. “I hate myself a lot less and very infrequently. … It’s really great because your sense of forgiveness is through the roof.”

  Getting older suits her. Five years ago, she wrote a widely circulated piece about loving her mom a “not-normal amount,” which was shared, liked and hearted by almost every Asian American in my social media circle. Phone calls from her mother gave her indigestion, she described. We could all relate.

  Some books slowly win you over, others have you at hello. The latter group — rare as they are — belong to the same club as “Emergency Contact.” Choi’s debut tackles questions of race, gender and cultural responsibility without pounding you over the head about it.

  Because, really, “Emergency Contact” is about love — mother love, first love, friend love, self love — and all the delightful, painful anxieties that come with it.

  The book begins with a clash between Penny, an intense 18-year-old Korean American, and her carefree mom, Celeste. Penny later heads off to her first year of college in Austin, carrying her emergency bag and a whip-smart brain for words. She wants to be a science-fiction writer.

  (Hatnim Lee for The Lily)
  (Hatnim Lee for The Lily)
  A scary incident propels Sam, a wannabe filmmaker, to start texting Penny, a relative stranger. It’s complicated: He’s poor, sleeps in the coffee shop where he works and still has this thing with his ex-girlfriend. When Penny and Sam start texting, they start becoming intertwined through dots and bubbles on their screens, and Penny’s life is jolted into an unlikely direction.

  She suddenly finds herself having “emoji hearts” for a 21-year-old tattooed man, while simultaneously dealing with a fraught relationship with her single mother. At the same time, she’s finding both solace and torture through her budding creativity.

  The responsibility of being a writer is one that Choi explores through Penny’s character. It’s a nuanced conversation that we’re having here, at Cafe Grumpy, and one that Penny’s black writing professor poses to her entire writing class at one point.

  The professor later continues: “Create diverse characters because you can. Especially ones that aren’t easy to write. A character that scares you is worth exploring. Yet if you breathe life into a character and it comes to you too easily — say you’re writing from the viewpoint of a black man in America and you’re not one? Think hard about where your inspiration is coming from. Are you writing stereotypes? Tropes? Are you fetishizing the otherness? Whose ideas are you spreading? Really consider how you transmit certain optics over others. Think about how much power that is.”

  The real writer, Choi — the one who’s really asking those questions — is messing with her tea bag as she thinks out loud. “I think those conversations have to happen,” she says. “There are a lot of different movements that try to recognize the privilege inherent in being East Asian versus South Asian, or Asian versus black versus trans versus anything else. Those conversations are really important.”

  (Hatnim Lee for The Lily)
  (Hatnim Lee for The Lily)
  Sure, “Emergency Contact” is one flavor of the minority experience, but it’s also a perspective that isn’t told a lot. Choi’s novel blows up Asian female stereotypes and prods readers to question their own cultural biases about women of color. For instance: Not all Asian moms are like Lane Kim’s in “Gilmore Girls.” Not all of them own antique shops or dry cleaners, care singularly about grades and won’t let their baby tiger cubs date until they’ve finished graduate school.

  Some, like Celeste, are achingly hip and don’t need ESL tips from their daughters.

  What Choi has done is capture the mother-daughter assimilation story of the 2010s — a far cry from the Amy Tan era and those “Joy Luck Club” days — and she does it all with a voice that’s relatable and lyrical.

  Arguably, her best moments are epitomized in the text messages between Penny and Sam. Like this heated one about the American health-care system:

  Sam quickly learns that Penny isn’t a wilting flower, but a passionate woman in her own right. Terrified, yes. But also brilliant, headstrong and armed with ironic humor and a wardrobe of black T-shirts.

  These are the qualities that draw him to Penny via text. It’s technology that helps them fall in love, and it’s technology that lurks in the background of “Emergency Contact.” Choi deftly navigates tech’s powerful grip over us and its leakage into our most private, personal spaces.

  It’s a difficult balancing act — steering through the assimilation experience without contributing to cliché narratives — and she did it in such a way that Asian Americans can hold this book and say, “This one’s ours.”

  For Choi, though, this book is for her mom. She dedicated it to her.

  Choi’s phone lights up, next to her empty cup. Her mother is calling, probably because of the snowstorm. Or maybe just to check up, like she usually does, two or three times a week.

  “It’s like she knows,” says Choi.

  These are some picks that Choi finds worthy, including a few she’s recently finished. They’re in no particular order, and they’re all written by women.

  One: "Everything I Never Told You” by Celeste Ng

  Two: "Children of Blood and Bone” by Tomi Adeyemi

  Three: "Her Body and Other Parties” by Carmen Maria Machado

  Four: "All Grown Up” by Jami Attenberg

  Five: "The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas

  Photography by Hatnim Lee for The Lily. Hand-lettering by Rachel Orr.

• Amazon -

  Book Descriptions:

  Vertigo Quarterly: CMYK #1 Black Comics – 2015
  by Mary H. K. Choi (Author)

  Writer: Choi, Mary H. K. Artist: Francavilla, Francesco BLACK is back for the final issue of the CMYK Quarterly. We've got some of comics' top writers and artists coming at you with bold statements and dark accents. Join us as we celebrate VERTIGO's favorite color and the anthology that's been bringing it all year long.

  Ghosts #1 Vertigo Comics – 2012
  Comic: 80 pages
  Publisher: DC (2012)

  by Geoff Johns (Author), Joe Kubert (Author, Illustrator), Gilbert Hernandez (Author, Illustrator), Paul Pope (Author), Cecil Castellucci (Author), Mary H.K. Choi (Author), Al Ewing (Author), Neil Kleid (Author), Rufus Dayglo (Illustrator), Phil Jimenez (Illustrator), Jeff Lemire (Illustrator), John McCrea (Illustrator), Amy Reeder Hadley (Illustrator)

  Check out this all-new anthology from some of the biggest talents in the industry! Stories spotlight a space heist on a ghost ship, a spirit who wants to play synthesizer in a techno band, a ghost-for-hire haunting agency and others dark, twisted tales. With stories and art by some of comics' greatest talents, this special features a cover by Dave Johnson, and a variant cover by Brendan McCarthy!

  Lady Deadpool #1 Comics – July 21, 2010
  by Mary H.K. Choi (Author)
  Marvel COmics

  "THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED" From the stunning sadism that brought you an entire brood of Deadpool droogs comes the chromosomal clusterhiccup that is Lady Deadpool. Agile, armed, and a howling she-lunatic, this recluse is robbed of the only thing she adores more than binge eating: cable TV. In an America ravaged by colossal debt and careening unemployment, the loss of the glowing idiot box is more than this girl can take. Why won't the government do anything? How is General America complicit? Was the genocide of all sitcom writers necessary? Should Wanda ransack the loins of a hot activist? Probably. 'Cause this Merc with a Mouth packs lipgloss. And it's sticky.

  Oh, Never Mind (Kindle Single) Kindle Edition
  Print Length: 38 pages
  Publication Date: September 1, 2014
  Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC

  Fresh out of college, Mary H.K. Choi booked a one-way ticket to New York City and never looked back. Twelve years and countless jobs, dates and a bajillion dollars in rent later, she'd finally had enough. In “Oh, Never Mind,” Choi chronicles her decision to let go of New York by looking back at the hilarious, and often brutal, life lessons the city taught her -- about love, money, friendship and, above all, herself. From buying a criminally expensive Rick Owens coat to quitting bulimia to accidentally dating a guy who works at the airport, these profoundly funny essays capture a young woman’s struggles coming of age in a city that not only doesn’t sleep; it keeps you up at night.

  Mary H.K. Choi is a contributor to The New York Times, GQ, Wired, Allure and Billboard. She is the head writer of “Take Part Live,” a daily news show. She is a former editor of MTV Style and executive producer of the documentary “House of Style: Music, Models and MTV.” She’s written comic books for Marvel and Vertigo, and is a founder of Missbehave magazine.

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Print Marked Items
Choi, Mary H.K.: EMERGENCY
CONTACT
Kirkus Reviews.
(Feb. 1, 2018):
COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Choi, Mary H.K. EMERGENCY CONTACT Simon & Schuster (Young Adult Fiction) $17.99 3, 27 ISBN:
978-1-5344-0896-8
A secret relationship conducted almost exclusively via text buoys a college freshman slouching awkwardly
toward adulthood and a 21-year-old cafe manager who is trying to clean up the mess his life has become.
When Korean-American Penny Lee, petite, unruly of hair, and socially inept, leaves home to attend the
University of Texas, she's eager to launch her writing career and gain some breathing space from her
inappropriately flirtatious, overwhelmingly extroverted mother. Sam, a lean, tattooed, and coolly coiffed
young white man, grew up with his wildly dysfunctional mother in a trailer park, dropped out of college,
got entangled in a manipulative relationship with an Instagram-obsessed beauty, and is now struggling to
stay sober and fulfill his dream of becoming a documentary filmmaker. After their paths cross in real life on
the streets of Austin, the two forge an unlikely friendship--or is it more?--via marathon texting sessions, the
physical distance allowing them to be vulnerable in a way that would crumble under the pressure of face-toface
contact. However, crises in both Penny's and Sam's lives as well as the tension resulting from their
increasing intimacy force them to move beyond the comfort of their glowing screens. While the premise is
appealing, character development is <>, making it difficult to care what happens to any of them. It is
sadly ironic that the feedback from Penny's creative writing professor (a noted African-American writer of
science fiction) that her story is "rhythmically one-note" and that "excellent dialogue and glitter-bomb
observations won't save you" applies equally to this novel.
Witty asides and up-to-the-minute slang cannot compensate for <> (Fiction. 14-18)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Choi, Mary H.K.: EMERGENCY CONTACT." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Feb. 2018. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A525461502/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=c4c750c2.
Accessed 17 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A525461502
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EMERGENCY CONTACT
Sarah Weber
BookPage.
(Apr. 2018): p28.
COPYRIGHT 2018 BookPage
http://bookpage.com/
Full Text:
EMERGENCY CONTACT
By Mary H.K. Choi
Simon & Schuster $17.99, 400 pages ISBN 9781534408968 Audio, eBook available Ages 14 and up
ROMANCE
Penny is thrilled to make the 79-mile drive to Austin, Texas, where she's about to begin her freshman year
of college--far away from everything she's been itching to leave behind. Sam runs a coffee shop near her
new campus and lives in the shop's storage room upstairs. He has plans to become a documentary
filmmaker, but first, he has to figure out how to put his past behind him.
When Penny and Sam meet, they swap numbers in case of emergency. But soon they find themselves
texting nonstop, growing closer to one another than to the friends they see in real life. But will Penny and
Sam's digital-only relationship be enough to help them through some of the toughest transitions they've ever
faced?
<>, Mary H.K. Choi's first novel <>
and her bubbly prose reveals a poignant slice-of-life story built around a diverse group of vulnerable
characters dealing with complicated issues. Though the narrative voice feels sprawling and occasionally
forced, the character voices crackle as Sam, Penny and their friends relate to each other in a sharp, witty
way that readers will recognize and enjoy. Emergency Contact is a bittersweet peek into the lives of two
teenagers who come together in the right moment to help each other deal with life's curveballs.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Weber, Sarah. "EMERGENCY CONTACT." BookPage, Apr. 2018, p. 28. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A532528605/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=3c255c8f.
Accessed 17 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A532528605
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Choi, Mary H.K.: Emergency Contact
Jes Caron
Voice of Youth Advocates.
40.6 (Feb. 2018): p53.
COPYRIGHT 2018 E L Kurdyla Publishing LLC
http://www.voya.com
Full Text:
Choi, Mary H.K. Emergency Contact. Simon & Schuster, March 2018. 400p. $17.99. 978-1-5344-0896-8.
3Q * 3P * S * NA
When Penny Lee meets Sam Becker, the "uncle" of her new college roommate, it goes just about how she
expects--quiet and awkward. While Penny finds Sam captivating, she does not think there is much of a
chance for a relationship of any kind between them. When their paths cross again and Penny helps Sam
through a panic attack, her preconceived ideas change. Following this incident, Penny and Sam realize that
they both have issues; life is complex and messy for them and everyone around them. Having each other as
an "emergency contact" means that neither is ever truly in it alone. Through texts, and the occasional phone
call, Penny and Sam develop a deep friendship that strengthens both of them and grows into something
more.
<> in Sam and Penny. Their voices lend <> to this contemporary coming-of-age romance, drawing in the reader and making the story
relatable. While Emergency Contact comes to a resolution, the book does not end in the traditional sense:
Sam and Penny are in a relationship but the subplots remain open, giving the reader the feeling that they
have just glimpsed a small part of this story. References to up-to-the-minute trends place the narrative in the
present but may cause the title to age quickly.--Jes Caron.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Caron, Jes. "Choi, Mary H.K.: Emergency Contact." Voice of Youth Advocates, Feb. 2018, p. 53. General
OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A529357104/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=be3fe553. Accessed 17 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A529357104
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Emergency Contact
Publishers Weekly.
265.1 (Jan. 1, 2018): p58+.
COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* Emergency Contact
Mary H.K Choi. Simon & Schuster, $17.99 (400p) ISBN 978-1-5344-0896-8
Unlike her flirtatious Korean mother, Penny Lee doesn't have much of a social life, but she hopes that things
will change when she goes off to college in Austin, Tex., to pursue becoming a writer. She soon meets Sam,
her roommate's 21-year-old uncle, a college dropout and talented baker who works (and lives) at a local
coffee house. They barely know each other, but, after Penny catches Sam in a vulnerable moment (he thinks
he's having a heart attack but is actually suffering from anxiety) they agree to be each other's emergency
contacts. Soon, they are exchanging texts and sharing secrets they've never divulged. In her first novel,
writer and reporter <> to risk an intimate relationship. Her sharp wit and skillful character development
(of Penny's mother: "in jeans and a faded T-shirt that read Slay Hunty, Celeste resembled an incoming
freshman as much as Penny did") ensure that readers will feel that they know Penny and Sam inside and out
before the gratifying conclusion. Ages 14-up. Agent: Edward Orloff, McCormick Literary. (Mar.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Emergency Contact." Publishers Weekly, 1 Jan. 2018, p. 58+. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A522125056/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=20fd295a.
Accessed 17 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A522125056
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CHOI, Mary H.K.: Emergency Contact
Eva Thaler-Sroussi
School Library Journal.
64.2 (Feb. 2018): p99+.
COPYRIGHT 2018 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No
redistribution permitted.
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
* CHOI, Mary H.K. Emergency Contact. 400p. S. & S. Mar. 2018. Tr $17.99. ISBN 9781534408968. POP
Gr 9 Up--This debut novel examines modern relationships in the age of smart phones. Penny Lee leaves
behind her humdrum high school years and meets her new college roommate Jude, who introduces Penny to
her tattooed, mysterious, and sexy young uncle, Sam. After a strange chance encounter, Sam and Penny
become each other's emergency contact. Choi creates an up-to-date and realistic contemporary romance by
upending the love story trope. Miscues and miscommunications, which often propel romantic plots forward,
are replaced by open and constant screen-to-screen communication. The tension exists in the development
of the relationship, starting with just texts, and evolving to a multi-platform, "in real life" friendship. In
alternating chapters, Penny and Sam reveal their innermost thoughts. Choi explores love, family issues,
identity, loneliness, and acceptance in the context of 24/7 social media. Despite the ever-present contact,
deeply connecting with another human being remains remarkably difficult. Choi creates another layer of
meaning by addressing the micro-aggressions that Penny, who is Korean American, faces. The protagonist's
response is handled deftly. An internal monologue includes a multiple-choice list of potential reactions to
external situations that will ring true with readers and make them appreciate <> VERDICT A highly recommended purchase for the teens who enjoy realistic
relationship fiction. Recommended for fans of Nicola Yoon's Everything, Everything and Rainbow Rowell's
Eleanor &?ark.--Eva Thaler-Sroussi, Needham Free Public Library, MA
KEY: * Excellent in relation to other titles on the same subject or in the same genre | Tr Hardcover trade
binding | lib. ed. Publisher's library binding | Board Board book | pap. Paperback | e eBook original | BL
Bilingual | POP Popular Picks
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Thaler-Sroussi, Eva. "CHOI, Mary H.K.: Emergency Contact." School Library Journal, Feb. 2018, p. 99+.
General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A526734107/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=1e3c6f45. Accessed 17 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A526734107

"Choi, Mary H.K.: EMERGENCY CONTACT." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Feb. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A525461502/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 17 May 2018. Weber, Sarah. "EMERGENCY CONTACT." BookPage, Apr. 2018, p. 28. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A532528605/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 17 May 2018. Caron, Jes. "Choi, Mary H.K.: Emergency Contact." Voice of Youth Advocates, Feb. 2018, p. 53. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A529357104/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 17 May 2018. "Emergency Contact." Publishers Weekly, 1 Jan. 2018, p. 58+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A522125056/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 17 May 2018. Thaler-Sroussi, Eva. "CHOI, Mary H.K.: Emergency Contact." School Library Journal, Feb. 2018, p. 99+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A526734107/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 17 May 2018.

• NPR
  https://www.npr.org/2018/03/29/594964035/stumbling-and-texting-toward-love-in-emergency-contact
  Word count: 872

  Stumbling (And Texting) Toward Love In 'Emergency Contact'
  March 29, 20187:00 AM ET
  CAITLYN PAXSON

  Emergency Contact
  Emergency Contact
  by Mary H. K. Choi

  Hardcover, 394 pages purchase

  Penny can't wait to go away to college. She is tired of dealing with her mother, who acts more like her best friend than her mom; Penny has always had to be the grown-up for both of them, and she is done. She heads to school in Austin, Texas, feeling awkward and unsociable and hoping to channel her angst into learning to be a writer.

  Meanwhile, Sam seems to have stalled out. He has dropped out of college, gotten a job at a coffee shop and started living in the empty storage room upstairs. Once, he wanted to study film — but now it's all he can do to make ends meet, and he can't seem to untangle his feelings for an ex who is no good for him.

  When a random encounter throws Penny and Sam together, they're too unrelentingly awkward and stuck in their own heads to become friends in real life. But they do agree to be emergency contacts and exchange phone numbers. One text leads to another, and soon they're using the safety of their phones to share things that they've never even admitted to themselves.

  I will admit that I was nervous going into this one. Overuse of modern technology is a pet peeve of mine in contemporary fiction, and reading a book in which the romance takes place largely over text felt like a risk. But I had heard this book compared to Eleanor & Park, and that promise made the risk worthwhile.

  True Love, Book Fights, And Why Ugly Stories Matter
  MONKEY SEE
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  What Terrifies Teens In Today's Young Adult Novels? The Economy
  BOOKS
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  Sure enough, the first chapter set me on edge by starting in an Apple store, where Penny is having an awkward time shopping for an iPhone with her mom. This soon leads to a sexting dilemma, and Penny's voice is so quippy-cute that the whole thing felt way more pop than I was prepared to like. Imagine my surprise when, a few chapters in, I stopped caring because Penny somehow broke down all my walls. Her tech became incidental and her voice endearing, and just like that, I was hooked. Even the texts feel very natural and elegantly woven into the narration.

  There is much more to both Sam and Penny than quirky character traits and witty repartee. Both of them have been deeply damaged by traumatic events, and they both have a lot to overcome if they're ever going to act on their flirtation. While the story does traffic in the heart flutter of romance that is tantalizingly out of reach, its emotional core goes deep. Sam and Penny are both people who are pretty bad at friendship, family — pretty much any kind of relationship that requires the sharing of feelings. They have to learn to be friends before they can be more than that, and the things they learn allow them to deepen their relationships with the other people in their lives as well as with each other.

  While<>

  At the heart of Emergency Contact is the issue of difficult mother-child relationships. Most teens away at college have an obvious emergency contact — their parents. But Sam and Penny have absent fathers and mothers upon whom they cannot rely. They both feel fundamentally unsafe and can only find true comfort in each other once they recognize their mothers as flawed people and deal with their feelings. These are thorny issues to tackle in a young adult novel — issues that many people are only able to take on for themselves once they are well into adulthood. Seeing them addressed here feels like a recognition of the true hardships that must be faced in order to build healthy relationships.

  So, is the Eleanor & Park comparison apt? There are certainly some similar themes, especially in terms of troubled families and the challenges they create within a person. But ultimately, this feels like a very different book. Eleanor & Park is about the heady elation of first love and the very adolescent challenge of not being free to express it. In Emergency Contact, we find two people who have all the freedom of adults, if not the emotional maturity, and who have no external impediment to their relationship — all their struggles are internal. Penny and Sam both enter the story with existing and mostly painful baggage around love and sex, so instead of heady elation, their journey feels more like one of slow healing. <>

  Caitlyn Paxson is a writer and performer. She is a regular reviewer for NPR Books and Quill & Quire.

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