“More than anything, I remember being in the country, roaming the prairie after school, reading and drawing next to our small ponds and creeks during the summer.”
Churn (Texas Review Press, 2023)
A question from Monica Macansantos: Do you ever find yourself inspired or guided by your childhood in your work?
Churn is heavily influenced by my childhood. Like protagonists Jordan and Chung, I grew up on a farm in central Kansas. More than anything, I remember being in the country, roaming the prairie after school, reading and drawing next to our small ponds and creeks during the summer. Coyotes were always near. Occasionally, mountain lions came down from Colorado and picked off farm cats and cattle. Being enthralled in that chaotic beauty gave me the closest feeling to religion I’ve had and inspired the somewhat melodramatic land-god religion Jordan develops when young.
Could you share a representative or pivotal excerpt from your book? Perhaps something that that invites the reader into the world of the book?
I’ll share a brief excerpt of Churn’s opening page.
“Chung, a gray speck in the mauve Kansas twilight, flails, arms raised, five hundred feet off from the farm. He’s been in the mud for an hour. I noticed him, shrieking, rubber boots ten inches deep and unlikely to be set free without our parents’ help, as it happened. I should’ve told our parents then, whichever one of them could function enough to stand. I should’ve helped him, my little brother. Instead, I sit on our front porch and feel the prick of the passing storm. I ignore the frenzied begging of the cats swarming me and think of what a good punishment this is for the bad thing my little brother has done. Last night, he brought my favorite stuffed tabby into the bath or played with it and dropped it or let the dog, who wasn’t supposed to be inside, drag the plush thing into the water. It didn’t matter. The toy’s faux fur crimped. Its voice box broke. No more I love yous. No more You’re purrtastic! A low, buzzy hiss comes where sweet joy once rang, and so I let the earth swallow him.
The land has a way of bending you to its will whether you are deserving or not.”
Why did you choose this excerpt?
This is one of the few scenes in Churn that takes place on their family farm, before their parents separate and everything fractures. Still, I think this excerpt encapsulates the difference in perspective and personality between these two siblings and foreshadows some of the more haunting environmental events to come.
What’s the oldest story in your book? Or can you name one piece that catalyzed or inspired the rest of the book? What do you remember about writing it?
“Wilson Lake,” the first chapter/story of Churn, was first drafted when I was still an undergrad, so in 2013 or 2014. At the time, I didn’t have a specific trajectory for the larger story in mind. “Wilson Lake” served as the catalyst for me to experiment with the supernatural and pursue linked short-story writing.
Which story is the “misfit” in your collection and why?
“Grandma Kim at Forty-Five: a serigraph in four layers” is definitely the misfit of Churn. It’s a brief flash story/chapter that uses the limited-set numbering used in printmaking. It was a form I was interested in replicating. I love screen printing, took a few college courses in it, but I always struggled with the perfect duplication you were expected to achieve. This story explores imperfection as a form of duplication.
What was the final story you wrote or significantly revised for the book, and how did that affect your sense that the book was complete?
The final story/chapter, “Beginnings,” was the last portion I wrote for Churn, and much later than any other part of the book. I had been trying to find a fitting end for the book for nearly two years. It was difficult, identifying how to end a project that’s ultimately a twenty-year study of trauma and recovery. I didn’t want the ending to be overly optimistic or tragic. While “Beginnings” tracks the first months of 2020, the pandemic and the rise of anti-Asian violence, it delivers what I hope is a complicated, bittersweet ending to these characters’ stories.
*
Chloe Chun Seim‘s writing has appeared in LitMag, Potomac Review, McNeese Review, Split Lip Magazine, and Timothy McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, among others. She won the 2021 Anton Chekov Award for Flash Fiction and her illustrated novel-in-stories, Churn, won the 2022 George Garrett Fiction Prize. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Chloe lives in Lawrence, KS.
http://www.chloeseim.wordpress.com
order Churn here
Speaking of Marvels 