Tom Pyun will be in conversation with K.M Soehnlein for this event.

First comes surrogacy, then comes the messy gay breakup in Tom Pyun’s tragi-comic debut novel that asks, is it ever too late to finally face yourself and grow up?

Winston Kang and Jared Cahill seem like the perfect couple. When they check in for their flight to Cambodia, where they’re headed to meet the surrogate carrying their baby girl, even the woman at the airline counter recognizes it: “I’m so happy that marriage is legal for you guys,” she says.

But while Jared is already planning for their second kid—half white like him, half Korean like Wynn—Wynn isn't ready to give up his dreams of becoming a hip-hop dancer to become "the hostage of a crying, pooping terrorist." So he does what anyone in his position would do: He leaves Jared at the airport.

Wynn sets off on a journey around the globe, trying to figure out what it means to put himself first, from auditioning for Misty Espinoza’s comeback tour to organizing a Prince-themed flash mob. Oceans away, Jared starts to panic that no one in his life can talk to Meryl about her period or what it’s like to grow up Asian American.

Told in alternating points of view, Pyun’s sardonic and addictive page-turner confronts questions of race, identity, and privilege, pulling at the loose threads of the American Dream and facing the question of whether it’s ever too late to finally face yourself and grow up.

Tom Pyun is a novelist and a writer of creative nonfiction. He earned his MFA at Antioch University Los Angeles and has been awarded fellowships at Vermont Studio Center, VONA, and Tin House. His writing has appeared in The Rumpus, Reed Magazine, Joyland, and Blue Mesa Review. His essay, “Mothers Always Know,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net 2015.

He didn’t begin writing creatively until the age of thirty-five. He studied sociology at Vassar College and public health epidemiology at Columbia University. After an almost two-decade-long career in the philanthropic, nonprofit, and governmental sectors, he has finally accepted his calling as a storyteller, artist, and healer.

K.M. SOEHNLEIN (he/him) was born in New York City, raised in New Jersey, and lives in San Francisco — all locations that have played a part in his writing. His debut novel, The World of Normal Boys, praised for its depiction of a queer teenager in the 1970s suburbs, won the Lambda Award for Gay Fiction. He followed it up with You Can Say You Knew Me When, a novel centered on two pivotal moments of San Francisco history, the heyday of the Beat Generation in 1960 and the peak of the first dot-com wave in 2000. His third novel, Robin and Ruby, followed the characters from The World of Normal Boys into the 1980s with the story of a brother and sister’s eventful weekend at the Jersey Shore. 

Soehnlein is the recipient of the Henfield Prize in short fiction and a Rainin Filmmaking Grant for screenwriting. His journalism and personal essays have appeared in numerous publications and anthologies. He received an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University and currently teaches at the University of San Francisco MFA in Writing Program.