R. O. Kwon 권오경
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rokwon.bsky.social
R. O. Kwon 권오경
@rokwon.bsky.social
26K followers 1.3K following 470 posts
📚 nationally bestselling novels Exhibit & The Incendiaries • co-edited Kink • Lambda Literary Duggins Prize • ‘25-‘26 American Library in Paris Visiting Fellow 🌈 she/her

www.ro-kwon.com/exhibit
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rokwon.bsky.social
hello from paris! here on a fellowship with the american library in paris to do research*

*for my novel. not for doing crimes
October 24, 2025 at 10:34 PM
rokwon.bsky.social
this one means the world to me 😭 I’m a recipient of the @lambdaliterary.org Duggins Prize, an award that “honors LGBTQ-identified authors who have published multiple novels, built a strong reputation and following, and show promise to continue publishing high quality work for years to come”
R. O. Kwon and Carter Sickels Win the 2025 Jim Duggins Prize for PhD Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize
September 30, 2025 at 6:57 PM
rokwon.bsky.social
what luck that I can pursue learning more about “things that greatly interest me” & call it work 😭

www.interviewmagazine.com/art/for-the-...
I fell wildly, urgently in love with Gala Porras-Kim’s work in a Seoul museum, where I saw a replica she made of a sarcophagus held in the British Museum. Taking seriously the beliefs of ancient Egyptians, who built doors facing east to let the dead see the sunrise, Porras-Kim proposed that the British Museum turn their sarcophagus east and wrote a letter explaining why. “Since we cannot yet be certain of the mechanics of the afterlife,” she wrote, “we could consider the perpetual plans of the persons under your charge as a guide for their care and, as such, in their display.”
September 20, 2025 at 11:11 PM
rokwon.bsky.social
in Seoul, I fell wildly in love with the work of Gala Porras-Kim, a Korean Colombian artist who imagines expansively beyond fights around museums’ return of artifacts often considered stolen

who(!) is this brilliant person & how do I talk to her, I thought, & I’m grateful INTERVIEW let me do so
Interview For the Artist Gala Porras- Kim, Sculpture Is a Portal to the Afterlife By R.O. Kwon September 19, 2025
September 20, 2025 at 11:05 PM
rokwon.bsky.social
delighted by these author baseball cards from @mcsweeneys.net, an ongoing series featuring writers including yours truly 💀
baseball card of an illustration of a korean woman with long black hair, text: r. o. kwon, national book critics circle john leonard finalist
August 30, 2025 at 8:41 PM
rokwon.bsky.social
jesus christ. getting an NEA fellowship 10 years ago changed my life. it meant so much. it helped a lot when, weeks later, my agent went out to editors with THE INCENDIARIES, written by an unknown first-time novelist. artists are eligible to apply again 10 years after getting an NEA. were eligible
Dear (R.O. (Reese) Kwon): This is in reference to your recent application to the National Endowment for the Arts' FY 2026 Creative Writing Fellowships. The NEA has cancelled the FY 2026 Creative Writing Fellowships program. The Creative Writing category has been Withdrawn by the Agency and will not be reviewed. We recognize that receiving this news can be disappointing, especially after all the hard work and dedication you put into your application.
August 22, 2025 at 11:52 PM
rokwon.bsky.social
the perfect daikon wedges in the oden at this beloved san francisco izakaya always look to me like big old smiles
daikon & mushroom-fish cakes in a broth, with bowls in the background
August 22, 2025 at 12:08 AM
rokwon.bsky.social
o how i love san francisco in the summer. hello to another deliciously chilly & windy & cloudy day, the gloom in me salutes the gloom in you
July 30, 2025 at 1:07 PM
rokwon.bsky.social
will be a 2025-2026 Visiting Fellow at the American Library in Paris!!! Going to work on & research my novel-in-progress, which involves a heist

Paris friends, will be there this fall 🍂
Korean woman with long black hair in raincoat. Text: The American Library in Paris, 2025-2026 Visiting Fellow, R. O. Kwon The American Library in Paris Visiting Fellowship was created in 2013 to nurture and sustain a heritage as old as the Library itself: deepening French-American understanding. The Fellowship offers writers, researchers, and creators the unique opportunity to spend a month in Paris working independently on their own creative project while contributing to the cultural life of the Library. In addition to working on their own project, Fellows present a public program during their residency that engages our audience and members around a central theme. The theme for 2025-2026 is Ways of Seeing, in line with the Library’s eponymous series exploring how literature and visual art inspire one another.
July 9, 2025 at 1:04 PM
rokwon.bsky.social
i signed this! thank you to the organizers 🫧

writers with published books & people who work in publishing, including agents, librarians, booksellers, illustrators, & more, y’all can also sign the letter here:

lithub.com/against-ai-a...
Against AI: An Open Letter From Writers to Publishers “We want our publishers to stand with us. To make a pledge that they will never release books that were created by machines.”
June 29, 2025 at 12:39 PM
rokwon.bsky.social
was most recently at @booksmith.bsky.social earlier in june to moderate a book event with the brilliant susan choi

you can find their events schedule below, next up they have a book launch with the mighty @maris.bsky.social

www.booksmith.com/event/2025-07
selfie with susan choi, two korean women smiling
June 27, 2025 at 12:14 AM
rokwon.bsky.social
EXHIBIT is out in paperback today!, with an updated cover 🖤

& here’s a banned-books fundraiser & lottery to mark this novel’s one-year birthday +

www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/635517/exhibit-by-r-o-kwon
Korean woman with black glasses holding up a paperback copy of EXHIBIT by R. O. Kwon
May 20, 2025 at 11:47 PM
rokwon.bsky.social
a surprise this Asian American Pacific Islander month: I’m told I’m featured in a display of notable AAPI people at my beloved local co-op, Rainbow Grocery, along with Anna May Wong, Sinn Sisamouth, et al. 🪦

thank you to Rainbow cheesemonger Gordon Edgar for the literal heads-up!
pictures of two Asian women, both hanging from a colorful ceiling display, along with a red sign saying “Sinn Sisamouth, Cambodian, Artist, Singer-Songwriter”
May 17, 2025 at 2:04 AM
rokwon.bsky.social
& here are more details about what we’ll get into

thank you to @katedwyer.bsky.social for putting this together
R.O. Kwon teaches Writing into Fear: A Writing Workshop Online session Wednesday, May 7 from 8pm to 10pm EST Increasingly, I trust in fear as a kind of guidepost: I walk toward it by writing about what terrifies me, what I can barely stand to put on a page, making art about the secret things I can hardly tell myself. Or as Toni Morrison said: “I am so terrified of terror that I always go where it is—for worse than anything for me is not facing the fear. If something is disturbing to me, I shoot there as fast as I can. I cannot abide that ability to not abide in my own destiny. There’s no evasion. It’s very compelling to go directly to the source. What you fear—it’s always information." How might fear serve as a guidepost for what you want to write next? What to do with the anxiety and even panic that can arise while trusting in fear? This class will be lecture-based and generative, and you'll leave with strategies for how to work along and with your own fears. — R.O. Kwon
May 5, 2025 at 8:45 PM
rokwon.bsky.social
i’m teaching a one-day workshop with @mcnallyjackson.bsky.social this wednesday 🩷 the online class will be lecture-based & generative, 5-7pm PT / 8-10pm ET

www.mcnallyjackson.com/writing-fear
May 5, 2025 at 8:41 PM
rokwon.bsky.social
wrote about undersea wine-aging, pedestrian-friendly superblocks, Catalan food, & architectural extravagance. I love this city so much
April 23, 2025 at 1:12 AM
rokwon.bsky.social
went to Barcelona & wrote about it for Travel + Leisure, & the piece is out in this month’s issue
April 23, 2025 at 1:09 AM
rokwon.bsky.social
with thanks to editor @laurenachristensen.bsky.social 🖤
“Goddess Complex” is astute about the repetitiveness of misery, and how pain can accrete like an enclosing wall, rising to block out the rest of the world. As Sanjana’s desperation builds, so do the grievances of those she loves. She masturbates to online real estate listings (“I set a minimum total price of $750,000”), and disrupts a friend’s baby shower by getting high and yelling the word “abortion.” Her sister kicks her out after she has sex with a 24-year-old in the backyard, captured on the security camera for Sanjana’s 7-year-old niece to see. (She even allowed the 24-year-old to urinate on her sister’s tomato garden, having heard that urine helps tomatoes grow.)
March 10, 2025 at 7:24 PM
rokwon.bsky.social
a joy to review Sanjena Sathian’s new novel, Goddess Complex, for the @nytbooks.bsky.social

www.nytimes.com/2025/03/07/b...
FICTION After an Abortion and a Separation, a 30-Something Flails Toward Adulthood The novel “Goddess Complex,” by Sanjena Sathian, takes a sharp turn from an existential crisis into a more literal one. If you’re a woman in America and you don’t want children — and if you’re honest about this when people ask — then you might be excessively familiar with the common follow-up opinions, questions, warnings. You’ll change your mind. What does your partner think? You’re wrong. You’ll regret it; once you come to your senses, it could be too late. Part of what can be striking about such rebuttals, over time, is how little they vary. It can feel as if the people claiming they know you better than you do are reciting lines from an immensely popular, age-old guide to life. Somehow, you’ve never read it: If you did, it probably still wouldn’t be for you. But how did so many people get their
March 10, 2025 at 7:21 PM
rokwon.bsky.social
(I mean I have other loves I suppose, including the writing I suppose, but my love of lifting is so beautifully uncomplicated, much unlike anything having to do with writing)
time I hit a personal record, nothing can negate the new triumph. It happened; it’s a fact, established. Before long, I’ll push a little higher. Such thrills are difficult to obtain in the rest of my life, much of which is dictated by writing. I am, to date, a slow writer—my debut novel took ten years. My second, nine. There was overlap between those years, but still. Upon finishing a book draft, I feel no sense of accomplishment: there are so many more to go. Meanwhile, as is true for any number of artists, my well-being is predicated on that of my writing. The first depends on the second. I think sometimes of what Honoré de Balzac said when he ran into his writer friends at the end of a day. He didn’t inquire how they were doing; instead, he asked if they’d worked well that day, since, if they said yes, it necessarily followed that his friends were thriving.
February 27, 2025 at 9:57 PM
rokwon.bsky.social
thank you so much to editor Kaitlyn Greenidge, & ty to @tonytula.com for suggesting I try out lifting in the first place
Accordingly, the threat of injury flits close. Every time I lift a barbell, I’m incapable of thinking beyond what my body is doing. How’s my core—did I square my scapulas—how’s my grip—are my shoulders rounding—what about my back—use my legs—push my feet into the ground. Core, grip, shoulders, back, legs, feet, I tell myself, time and again, circling around a ritual that seems to expand with each reprise. The ritual defines a charmed ring, an idyll, in which I have not a thing to do but inhabit a body, this bundle of muscle and skin going so far past what I thought to be its limits.
February 27, 2025 at 9:48 PM
rokwon.bsky.social
I wrote for Harper’s Bazaar about my true love, power-lifting! & why one of the only ways I can find calm is by risking physical injury 🏋🏻‍♀️

www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/feat...
Power Lifting Made Me a Better Writer Strength training became an artistic practice for one best-selling novelist BY R.O. KWONPUBLISHED: FEB 26, 2025 bookmarks O One of the only ways I can find calm is by risking injury. I began learning this when, years ago, I tried rock-climbing. Bouldering, that is, which doesn’t involve rope and harnesses. Scaling 17-foot walls with no backup rope, balancing all my weight on a toe and two fingers, knowing that if I fall badly I might break a bone or worse—I hadn’t known my otherwise anxious, restless mind could get this quiet from anything so relatively available as a gym sport. For several years, I climbed as often as I could. But that proximity to physical harm did come, at times, with real injury. I
February 27, 2025 at 9:45 PM
rokwon.bsky.social
oh hi thank you so much @nytimes.com for recommending Kink in your Valentine’s Day gift guide 🫀🖤

www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/g...
The 24 Best Last-Minute Valentine’s Day Gifts Updated February 13, 2025 Photo: Marki Williams Mari Uyehara Samantha Schoech By Mari Uyehara and Samantha Schoech Titillating tales Kink: Stories Featuring work by Roxane Gay and Alexander Chee, among others, this short fiction anthology is a romp through wide-ranging experiences with sex. As this anthology’s name suggests, the literary short fiction collected here examines love and desire, through journeys across bedrooms and therapists’ offices, modern sex clubs, and a 20th century Parisian sex theater. Edited by writers R.O. Kwon and Garth Greenwell and featuring
February 15, 2025 at 1:19 PM
rokwon.bsky.social
my grandmother wanted me to take her furniture & i was very glad to do so & as you can see the overall koreanness of my apartment has dramatically intensified
jagae furniture, black & mother-of-pearl
February 8, 2025 at 6:53 PM
rokwon.bsky.social
IMMEMORIAL by @laurenmarkham.bsky.social is out at last & it is brilliant, fortifying, exactly an antidote I’ve needed for these past weeks’ poison 🖤🌱

www.transitbooks.org/books/immemo...
cover of Lauren Markham’s book Immemorial, with pink trees on a green background
February 7, 2025 at 2:14 AM