Siel Ju's Blog

Hobart has been one of my favorite literary zines for a long time — and I have a new story in it this month, called “Quiet.” It starts like this:

He suggested we go to the rooftop where it was quiet, and I said yes, though I knew he didn’t really want to talk with me. I knew what he wanted. That hadn’t changed. Then and now he wanted go to a place we could fuck, though he never said the words, let’s go fuck, much less, I want to fuck you. He was obvious but never forthright, which is why I co...

I wrote my last love note of 2020! Here’s an excerpt:

At this point of the year there’s the sense of life just going on formlessly, its loose ends drooping like the strings of tired balloons, shriveled and slowly sinking to the floor because the party was over days ago, and it happened without you. The end of the year feels like purgatory, we trudge through it wanting it to be over already, we chafe against the grimy December days grinding on and on and on, keeping us from the fresh new year....

I wrote a love note about nomading, dating, and leaving Temecula in a hurry. Heres an excerpt:

Looking for a place to live is a lot like dating, Im discovering. As a tween, you think, oh, I just want a boyfriend whos cute and nice! Then your list of must-haves starts growing as you actually start going out with guys, lengthening with requirements you never thought youd need to explicitly state: Must not drink an entire liter bottle of sake by himself during first date. Must have interests...

This month’s love note is about loneliness and aloneness and Thanksgiving. Here’s an excerpt:

I can’t pinpoint the exact moment my loneliness left me. Maybe its departure was a gradual one, because I only noticed its absence many months after the fact. This was in April or May. I was walking down my tree-lined street in Burbank, greeting familiar masked faces as they passed (with gyms closed, my entire neighborhood turned to long evening walks) when I realized it: For as long as I could remem...

This month’s love note is about reshaping life and Temecula and CBD gummies and THC sublinguals. Here’s an excerpt:

This year has felt like a sort of purgatory, all of us waiting for life to rebegin again. Yet this year has also felt transformative, all of us rethinking who we are, what we want, how to live — then going for it, fueled by necessity or desire. 

So many friends have changed careers! Moved across the country! Baked up impressive quantities of delicious carbs! Learned things th...

At long last, ZYZZYVA’s Los Angeles issue is out — and I have a story in it.

This is my second story in ZYZZYVA — and my second ZYZZYVA story inspired by Craigslist. It’s titled “People Say they Want Something.” Here’s an excerpt:

It was because of a couch that I met Cellie. The couch was ugly and listed under free stuff. I figured I could use it until I found one I actually wanted. The photo showed a cheap, boxy thing that looked to be made of Styrofoam. “It’s got some stains on it. It c...

This month’s love note is about death and mountains and guns and Chekhov. It begins thusly:

One evening a few weeks ago, I got lost in the mountains. I was on a road I was pretty sure I’d been on before, but in the post-sunset dark, all the pine trees looked the same. Google Maps wouldn’t work — I’d crossed into an AT&T dead zone. Then my phone died altogether. 

Bears will be out soon, I thought. Meaning I could be dead soon. I started panicking. I broke into a run.

Read the rest here....

Yesterday I drove toward a gigantic fire! Today I’m breathing smoke! More on that, Lake Arrowhead, hiking with friends, and the nomad life in my latest love note.

Last month I quit my job in the middle of a pandemic! I’m happy about it. More on that, suicide, fuck you funds, and freedom in the latest love note.

If you’re looking for a dark summer vacation read, check out my latest book review in the Los Angeles Review of Books — “Too Close to Home: On Yun Ko-eun’s The Disaster Tourist.”

Here’s a little excerpt:

All the upheavals of 2020 perhaps make now the perfect time to read Yun Ko-eun’s latest novel, The Disaster Tourist. This slim work centers around Jungle, a Korean travel company that caters to people’s love of gawking at accidents. Jungle coldly quantifies natural catastrophes and human s...