Interview Questions by Claire Tang
Interview Answers by Rina Olsen
Rina Olsen, a rising high school senior from Guam, is the author of Third Moon Passing (Atmosphere Press, June 2023) and The Water Stricken (Atmosphere Press, October 2024). A 2024 alum of the YoungArts program, the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio, the Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program, and the John Locke Institute Summer School, her work has been recognized by the John Locke Institute, Sejong Cultural Society, Walt Whitman Birthplace Association, Carl Sandburg Home, and Guam History Day. Her fiction pieces “Bataya Slums, 1971” (Milk Candy Review) and “Skeletons in the Closet” (Okay Donkey) were long listed for Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Fictions 2024. When she isn’t writing, Rina can be found playing the piano, looking up obscure history, or with her nose in a good book. Find out more at her website: https://rinaolsen.com.
Claire Tang (CT): What would you say is the driving force behind your passion for writing?
Rina Olsen (RO): I’ve always been fascinated with stories and their power to transform the world around us, so part of it is my wish to see something that I wrote sitting on someone’s shelf and be able to think that for a moment, I was able to suspend their disbelief and immerse them in a brand-new perspective. I wanted to create worlds that had dragged me away from my reality ever since childhood, and this led me to write small bits of fiction to entertain myself until I began writing seriously in my freshman year of high school.
My passion for writing also stems from my zainichi Korean heritage and my determination to use literature as a means for historical awareness and social change. In an interview with Feathered Quill, I described how my family history and my difficulty to connect with my Korean heritage as a result of Japanese colonialism fuels me to write not just as a form of catharsis but also to realize the power of literature to draw attention to certain issues. While as of now I’m preoccupied with the Haedong Chronicles, I hope to focus more on writing about zainichi Korean history in the future and using my craft as a means for social activism.
CT: Third Moon Passing is rich with Korean myths and folklore, yet it is also full of documented historical events from the 19th century, such as the American invasions of Korea. Why did you choose to weave together history and mythology? What was the process of weaving together the two?
RO: I was originally inspired by the 1871 American Expedition to Korea and set out to draw greater attention to this historical event. My first draft had absolutely no fantasy or folklore, and when I scrapped it and was casting about for ways to fix the storyline, my interest caught on to Korean shamanism. I wanted to explore the practices of Korean folk religion and Korean mythology while still casting a light on the expedition, which resulted in the push-and-pull dynamic of divine interference vs. the course of history. Bit by bit I added more folklore and parallels to the myths in the story, blurring the line between reality and mythology to establish an equilibrium that I was happy with.
CT: You have such a talent for creating characters that feel complex and real, even as they exist within a mythical world. Do you draw inspiration for character behaviors from people in your life, or are they purely drawn from mythology? In particular, where did the inspiration behind the characters Chansol and Moonsoo come from?
RO: Characters are actually an area in which I am still experimenting, and this is something that I tried to pay more attention to in my second book. As part of my “research,” I’ve begun to notice the habits and speech patterns of the people around me more, and these observances do inspire me when I’m adding layers to a character. I draw from mythology as well, though, and try to match characters with what I imagine would be their inherent qualities: for example, Moonsoo’s moodiness and occasional fickle nature, for example, reflects the unpredictability of water; the Hyeolgu-Sanshin is wizened and experienced like old mountains, particularly compared to his young daughter, who is as stubborn as two tectonic plates that each refuse to sink under the other and thus force the earth up into a new crag.
The inspiration for Chansol and Moonsoo was that I wanted a more fantastical version of characters from older drafts. Chansol wasn’t yet a mountain goddess but a peasant’s daughter, whose unlikely alliance with the son of a lord—who would later become Moonsoo—resulted in drastic responses to the disturbance of their peaceful village by encroaching Western influence. As I reworked the characters, I decided to cast them both as deities to better incorporate the mythological elements that I was trying to develop and explore.
CT: On a more general note, what would you say the moral or the final takeaway of Third Moon Passing is?
RO: I began writing this book with the intent of highlighting a historical event that remains lesser-known in the Western world. While the fantasy element takes up much of the book, it is mainly this that I intended to impart to the reader, and how it was one of the first dominos to fall in Korea’s gradual subjugation under greater world powers. On another note, I was also interested in exploring various dichotomies, such as isolationism vs. internationalism, mountains vs. rivers, fate vs. free will, etc. I think that in the end, I didn’t just want to inform the reader about the 1871 American Expedition to Korea, but also to show them some of the intricacies that accompanied it.
CT: The process from drafting out a novel to getting it published feels complicated, even daunting, especially for younger writers. What was the publishing process like for you? Do you have any advice regarding this process?
RO: I strongly recommend researching the publishing process so that one has a general understanding of what it’s like. I had read so many websites, blogs, and articles of the writing craft itself, but didn’t realize that I had never really looked into the publishing side of the craft. As a result, I went into it blind and learned by making mistakes instead of preparing myself for potential outcomes, which I now understand were avoidable. Vanity presses, bad contracts, your book not getting the care and attention it deserves—there’s so many pitfalls into which authors can fall into if they’re not aware of them.
Find books about publishing. Look up websites and articles about different types of publishing, general expectations, author experiences, etc. Ask around—the Internet has made so many sources within reach just with the press of a button. I think that once you have an idea of what to expect, it's easier to feel your way around publishing and, eventually, find somebody who likes your work.
CT: I heard that you’re working on a second novel The Water Stricken, a prequel to Third Moon Passing. In what ways is it different or similar to Third Moon Passing? Is there anything you can say about its future plans?
RO: I’m pleased to announce that The Water Stricken is slated to come out in October 2024! The story is set during the French Expedition of Korea in 1866, five years before the events of The Water Stricken. It’s vastly different, to my mind—while it’s set in the same village and features some cameo appearances from Third Moon Passing, it deals more with the intersections of religion and cultures that can lead to conflict, as opposed to the extent of interference that the spiritual realm might impose upon the physical realm without causing a disruption in the status quo. My third book, Muddy Jade Pieces, goes into this a bit deeper. While it’s still in the early drafting stages, it’s set against the historical backdrop of the 1875 Japanese Expedition to Korea, and penetrates deeper into the subjects of fortune telling and the extent to which one can truly influence the future.
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