Dreamt I Found You
Join us for the release of Jimin Han’s newest novel “Dreamt I Found You” on April 30th at 6pm in conversation with Kathy Curto “Not For Nothing”.
“Dreamt I Found You”: “From the critically acclaimed author of The Apology, a contemporary retelling of Korea's Romeo & Juliet, in which the cousin of the star-crossed lovers helps them avoid a tragic fate.
When Dahee Shin was nine years old, she made a promise to protect her favorite cousin, Channing, who has always been like a sister to her. Now, at thirty, Dahee has found herself in a Korean American community in a New England beach town, once more running to the rescue of her debt-ridden relative.
Ever the idealist, Channing--who has spent her life haunted by the tragic story of Chunhyang and Mongryong, Korea's parallel Romeo & Juliet--has fallen in love with Minjae Oh, all the while fending off the advances of powerful, manipulative Kent Cho, a local politician. As Channing and Minjae's romance blossoms, and as Kent's suspicion and obsession grow, Dahee begins to realize that it may be up to her to make sure her cousin and beloved escape Chunhyang and Mongryong's doomed end.
For fans of Hello Beautiful, Dreamt I Found You is a wondrous, tender retelling of Korea's most classic love story, steeped in the travails of a rigid class system, the power of premonition, and shot through with Korean folklore and magic.”
Jimin Han was born in Seoul, South Korea, and grew up in Providence, Rhode Island; Dayton, Ohio; and Jamestown, New York. She is the author of A Small Revolution and The Apology. She has written for NPR's Weekend America, Poets and Writers Magazine, Catapult Magazine, Platypus Press, and Citric Acid Literary Journal, among others. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and Pace University, as well as at community writing centers. She lives outside New York City.
“Not For Nothing”: In a series of essays entitled Not for Nothing: Glimpses into a Jersey Girlhood (Bordighera Press) Kathy Curto recounts her Italian American girlhood on the Jersey Shore in the '70s & '80s. Some constant pivotal realities are ever-present in this coming-of-age memoir: the fallout from her parents' stormy marriage, the physical and emotional residue from dirty, undervalued work and the effects of infidelity and addiction. The daily dramas in her curious imagination, in the kitchen of their house on Regency Court and at Fred's Texaco, the family business, guided her developing understanding of the world. This book is as much about people as it is about place, language, and chaotic family love. Not for Nothing: Glimpses into a Jersey Girlhood peeks into the blue-collar, lipstick-on-your-collar and button-up-your-collar-and-be-a-good-girl time of life that produced hilarious and tragic understandings (and misunderstandings) of the world.
Kathy Curto is a writing professor and the author of Not for Nothing-Glimpses into a Jersey Girlhood. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her family and can be found in her front yard, on most mornings, replenishing her Little Free Library with donated books. This practice has become one of her daily delights. Please visit: www.kathycurto.com or on IG @kathy.curto.