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Author: Brad Johnson

Brad Johnson is an author and blogger who helps writers discover their niche, build successful habits, and quit their 9-5. His books include Ignite Your Beacon, Writing Clout and Tomes Of A Healing Heart. For strategic content and practical tips on how to become a full-time writer, visit: BradleyJohnsonProductions.com.

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Having trouble viewing the text? You can always read the original article here: How a Marketing Podcast Gives Brands a Human Voice

Can a podcast lend an important human voice to our otherwise robotic digital brands? Here’s what the data says. A website has some limitations when it comes to growing your brand. A website has to wait until someone comes to visit. It’s like that kid always hoping someone will sleep over. You can’t send it […]

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7 Novels About Being Trapped on an Island

Reading a good book can feel like traveling to a remote island. A particular kind of journey where having crossed a stretch of water, and surrounded by sea, you are cut off from the rest of the world. For a writer, an island lends itself to creating atmosphere—claustrophobic, mystical, exposed. Or, as Agatha Christie understood, a different kind of locked room. 

The Truants by Kate Weinberg

I began writing The Truants after a hiking holiday on a far-flung island of the Aeolian archipelago when it occurred to me that the landscape, and its position—stranded in the Mediterranean—was the ideal backdrop for a psychodrama of suspense. But somewhere in the writing process, the island started to feel more like a character than a setting. The winding cliff-paths, the sheer drops and forbidding sea all started having their own effect on the story. 

Naturally, writing about an island was also a very good excuse to go back.

Here are some of the novels that inspired me to leave the mainland.

The Magus by John Fowles

Fowles uses a Greek island to great effect as a backdrop for an intense psychological experiment that is carried out on his now-you-like-him-now-you-hate-him protagonist Nicholas Urfe. I remember reading this at university for three days straight, curtains closed. Compulsory reading for any young man who thinks that he “loves women.”

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

Two of Agatha Christie’s best works—this and Evil Under the Sun—take place on an island that was based on the real-life Burgh island, off the coast of Devon, where Christie went for periods of extended writing. And Then There Were None makes best use of the setting, with stormy seas cutting off the assembled suspects to create a sense of fatal claustrophobia as they are picked off one by one. I swam around Burgh island while I was doing some research for The Truants, lost all sensation in my hands and feet, and nearly joined them.

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

Jansson writes delicately about a relationship between grandmother and grandchild—in which the missing mother is felt keenly in the silences on a wild Finnish island. The non-verbal communication between the old woman and young girl and the daily workings of a simple life works beautifully to bring out the poignancy of this quiet, inter-generational masterpiece. 

Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres

Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernières

The island of Cephalonia feels like one of the central characters in this charismatic love story, and is, in fact, pivotal to the plot. Not only is the ambiguity of heroism and villainy explored through the occupation of the Greek island by an Italian army who are then massacred by the Germans; but the idea of “history” itself is challenged—as Dr. Iannis, the heroine’s father, struggles to write a factual book about the island, but finds himself constantly diverted by personal feelings and biases. 

Circe by Madeline Miller

Most of Miller’s evocative, feminist retelling of Circe’s story takes place on Aiaia, the island on which Circe has been banished by Zeus because her occult powers don’t sit well in divine circles. Circe learns to make her place of exile work for her, harvesting dry herbs to make spells and soon the island itself begins to feel like an extension of her powers.

The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins

A devastating story of control, abuse, and twisted love told through Frannie, a Jamaican slave girl who is being tried at the Old Bailey for a double murder. But the roots of the crime take place in Jamaica, and with Frannie’s re-telling of the horrific abuse that took place as a slave girl in the “Paradise” plantation, the fetid “sun-addled” island takes on the nightmarish quality of a traumatized psyche. 

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The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Most of the action in The Great Gatsby takes place on “that slender, riotous island which extends itself due east of New York.” Like many of the characters in the novel, the island has a schizophrenic quality to it, split into East Egg—where the Buchanans live—and the “less fashionable” West Egg, where Gatsby and Nick live. One of the prevailing images of the book is of Gatsby standing at the bottom of his garden at night time, staring at the green light at the end of a dock on West Egg where Daisy and all his hopeless romantic ideals abide. 

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Content Marketing Statistics

Content marketing continues to generate buzz and can be an amazing way to generate new leads and convert those leads into customers. No matter what form the content takes, it can help establish a brand as an authority in its field. The state of content marketing in the last few years has been one of great change.

The latest State of Content Marketing Report from SEMrush analyzed more than 450,000 tweets, 700,000 blog posts, hundreds of thousands of Google search queries and surveyed more than 1,200 marketing professionals around the world.

The report uncovered a number of content marketing trends that ruled the marketing world over the past year.

Here are ten content marketing statistics from the report that highlight the trends most likely to continue over the next several years.

Longer Articles Over 3,000 Words Received 3X More Traffic


Longer articles over 3,000 words receive 3X more traffic, according to a report by @SEMrush #contentmarketing

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In a few years, articles went from short pieces to lengthy, detailed pieces chock full of information. Pieces of 3,000 words or more got about three times the traffic and four times the shares as articles between 900 to 1,200 words. They also got more backlinks than shorter pieces.

While there is still a place for shorter pieces, a mix of long-form articles helps drive traffic and keeps site visitors engaged. The longer articles may also rank better in search engine results throughout 2020 (until the algorithms change yet again, anyway.

Anatomy of Top-Performing Content – Key Stats from the SEMrush State of Content Marketing Report

Around 37% of Americans Use Mobile Platforms to Go Online


Around 37% of Americans use mobile platforms to go online

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For the last few years, there has been a huge push to go mobile-first and to really make online content smartphone-friendly.

While there is evidence that more and more people use their phones to access the internet, the results in the State of Content Marketing Report highlight that many still access websites via desktop.

Traffic to Industry Blogs by Device

SEMrush looked at the devices people use to browse different industry blogs across the globe between April and September 2019 and split their traffic into desktop and mobile.

Pew Internet Research found that about 37% of Americans use their mobile devices to go online and the overall number of people owning a smartphone went from 35% in 2011 to 81% in 2019. Mobile usage continues to rise in 2020.

However, many still use their desktops to research information. In a look at over 1,000 blogs, researchers discovered that around 63% of the traffic to automotive dealerships is via desktop. The numbers reach as high as 80% and above for online education and marketing topics.

The key takeaway here is to write for the audience rather than a device and make sure your website adapts to whatever screen size the user has at a given moment.

content marketing - screen size

The Majority of Marketing Agencies Expanded Their Product Offerings

Another trend in the past year is a shift in the way marketing agencies package their products. Some agencies turned to proprietary software to increase the advantages of working with them over another agency. There is a lot of competition in the digital marketing space, so anything a company does to stand out increases potential profits.

Agencies should look at services already offered and find ways to expand into a full-service agency, so clients get all their exposure from one place. For example, add an event-planning service complete with logo-imprinted giveaway items. Any work that is farmed out or covered by another company is an opportunity for growth in 2020.

Successful Blogs Use a Mix of 13.8% Lists, 10.8% Q&As and 5.10% How-Tos

The report also looked at the different types of articles posted on blogs and found that most blogs benefited from a mix of different topics. For example, online education blogs had a mix of traffic that looked something like this: 3.6% guides, 5.10% how-to pieces, 10.8% Q&A articles and 13.8% lists.

Industry Blogs Top-performing Articles by Type

Industry Blogs Top-performing Articles by Type

Finding the right mix for each website is a matter of digging into site analytics and analyzing not only the popular topics on that blog but also competitor blogs. Many blogs even offer a look at the most popular articles, making it easy to do a bit of research and uncover which topics are popular with a given target audience.

There Are 2.96 Billion People on Social Media

One thing the report uncovered is that most businesses aren’t using social media as much as they should be, based on the number of users. There are approximately 2.96 billion people on social media.

The only categories using social media frequently enough were the fitness and health, home and garden and pharmaceutical categories. Each business is unique, so some marketers did a better job at social media promotions than others. However, it is a real weakness in the industry that must be addressed.

Headlines of 14 Words or More Got 5X More Backlinks


Headlines of 14 words or more get 5X more backlinks #contentmarketing

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The report also uncovered an increase in headline length. The reason writers should use longer headlines of 14 words or more is because they get twice as much traffic, two times as many shares and five times more backlinks.

The traditional advice was to keep headline length between seven and 10 words, but that seems to be changing. People want to know they are getting the specific information they’re seeking.

Listicles Get Double the Traffic of Other Types of Posts

Listicles seem to be everywhere. People are busy and they like information they can absorb in quick chunks. The ability to skim over subheadings in a listicle helps the user zero in on the exact advice they need.

The State of Content Marketing Report 2019 by SEMrush also uncovered that listicles get the most shares and traffic — as much as double what other types of posts receive.

36% of Articles With Both H2 and H3 Headings Got More Traffic and Shares

The study also uncovered that the use of both H2 and H3 headings resulted in higher performances.

About 36% of articles with both headings had more traffic, shares and backlinks than similar articles without. The reason likely comes back to the need for people to skim and find the exact material needed. Descriptive headings save the reader time and frustration.


36% of articles With both H2 and H3 headings get more traffic and shares #contentmarketing

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2020 Is About Ranking Higher Than Position #1

Search engines such as Google now use position zero to highlight quick snippets of content. While rich snippets have been around for a while, the way Google pulls information from content changed a bit in the last two years.

A rich snippet can appear anywhere in the text, so utilizing bullets helps Google see what content readers need most. Bulleted lists also make content more skimmable for readers.

The Word ‘Strategy’ Appeared in 29% of Tweets About Content Marketing

For years, top marketers have turned to well-organized plans in order to gain the most traction possible. The keyword phrase “content marketing strategy” was the most popular keyword in the category of content marketing and appeared in 29% of tweets. Content marketing strategy also appeared in the top 20 questions asked on Google about the topic.

Topics Discussed with the #ContentMarketing hashtag

SEMrush used a mixture of machine learning and human expertise to analyze the topics (key themes) that were discussed in the most popular tweets (20+ retweets) that were published between January and September 2019 and contained the #ContentMarketing hashtag.

In the last year, most people noticed more and more campaigns geared toward a specific holiday or event. Promoters have learned that people want highly personalized material that speaks directly to them and their needs. At the same time, consistency is the key to brand name recognition. Planned-out programs offer variety while still tying everything together with an underlying theme.

Conclusion

If you haven’t already, I urge you to download the State of Content Marketing Report from SEMrush. It’s filled with even more useful data to help guide your content marketing strategy this year.

The post 10 Content Marketing Statistics for 2020 appeared first on Convince and Convert: Social Media Consulting and Content Marketing Consulting.

        

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Today I’ll be covering mobile app downloads in China, email marketing, CX in the travel sector and much more.

Head on over to the Internet Statistics Database when you’re done for more in-depth data on your favourite digital marketing topics.

45% of over-65s prefer to delay making a purchase via email marketing until they are on a desktop computer

Insight from the DMA’s latest report, Consumer Email Tracker 2020, indicates that 45% of over-65s prefer to delay making a purchase via email marketing until they are on a desktop computer.

The majority of consumers aged 45 and over check their emails once daily or more and most often do so using their computer, rather than mobile devices, while the opposite can be said for their younger counterparts.

When it comes to taking action via email marketing, 45-54 year-olds are most comfortable clicking through straight to a brand’s website to make a purchase (36%) compared to switching to a desktop computer (18%) or a tablet (2%). In contrast, those who fall in the 65+ category would much rather wait until they have a desktop computer on hand (45%) than make a direct purchase through the brand’s website via a CTA (15%).

Clearly, GDPR hasn’t reassured consumers in this age range either. When surveyed, 48% of over-65s said that they were no more confident in the use of their personal information and 39% said they were ‘often’ left wondering how a brand obtained their email address. These figures decline with age, but 45-54 year-olds are noticeably more concerned about personal data than those in younger age categories, according to the report.

Eight effective examples of email sign up forms

App downloads jump 40% in China during the first two weeks of February

Chinese weekly app downloads saw a 40% jump during the first two weeks of February compared to average downloads for the entirety of 2019, according to the Financial Times. Over 220 million downloads were reported via Apple’s app store in China during the week commencing 2nd February alone.

These record-breaking numbers are thought to be prompted by Chinese consumers staying at home in the worst affected regions of the country as the Coronavirus outbreak worsens.

Educational apps were particularly in demand, experiencing downloads of more than twice the average rate for 2019 as many schools in the area remain closed. Meanwhile, gaming apps ranked way out in front at nearly 70 million downloads per week as of 20th February, causing an unexpected boost to the global gaming industry as a result. Under usual circumstances, app developers are used to seeing a drop in overall downloads after lunar new year celebrations as people return to work and have less time to spare.

Shares in Tencent, the Chinese mobile gaming giant, as well as New Oriental Education (an online education provider) have surged thanks to this behaviour. However, companies such as Nintendo, which are more hardware reliant, have experienced a fall in shares due to concerns over factory closures and supply chain issues brought about by the virus.

Apple App Store

Novel coronavirus outbreak: how Clorox and Lysol are using rapid-response marketing

61% of travel orgs say their efforts to improve CX are sub-par

Nearly two-thirds of global travel organisations say that their efforts to improve CX are either ‘average’ or ‘terrible’, a report from Reuters Events has discovered. Just 6% said that their efforts in the area were ‘outstanding’.

Respondents cited ‘budget constraints’ as their biggest barrier to delivering effective CX, as only 49% stated that more budget was being allocated for this purpose, while 42% said that it was staying the same. Ultimately, the majority of organisations believe that the buck stops with C-Suite individuals when it comes to delivering a great customer experience.

So, despite 62% claiming that they take CX seriously, there appears to be some disconnect between attitudes and goals, mostly caused by the lack of resources, funding and outdated legacy systems, among other challenges.

However, travel organisations appear to have hope in the future. Forty-eight percent of respondents said that they expect AI to be the most impactful emerging technology for the improvement of overall customer experience, followed by virtual assistants (29%) and omnichannel engagement solutions (26%).

Instagram travel social media

Six excellent hotel websites (and how they encourage direct booking)

Ecommerce sees highest sales on Thursdays

Online shoppers were more likely to make a purchase on Thursdays than on any other day of the week in 2019, according to Salecycle.

The report, 2020 Ecommerce Stats, collected global data from Salecycle clients to reveal insights about the ecommerce landscape throughout 2019, leading into 2020.

Average sales volume for Thursdays were measured at around 15%, with consumers purchasing over three million times more than on a Saturday, which ranked lowest at around 12.5%. Moreover, 9pm was the most popular time of day to shop, accounting for a little over 6% of total sales volume.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the 29th day of each month saw the highest purchase volume, while the 21st saw the lowest, as most shoppers rein in their spending until payday.

Interestingly, APAC and South America saw the largest ecommerce sales growth during 2019 – 25% and 21.3% respectively, but more established markets like Europe and North America slowed somewhat. Mexico came out on top as the region with the highest ecommerce growth at 35%, with India (31.9%) and the Philippines (31%) following in second and third place, contributing significantly to the overall results within their respective continents.

Events such as Asia’s ‘Singles Day’ also played a part in these geographical figures. Purchases on 11th November 2019 accounted for $38.4bn of ecommerce sales in the region, jumping from $30.8bn on the same date in 2018 (more than double the sales of Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined).

35% of SMBs do not boost their online videos

A global study of small business marketing trends from Promo claims that 35% of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) do not boost their online videos, instead relying on organic reach. However, those that do are most likely to spend up to $500 per month (41% of respondents), and 12% spend between $500 and $2000.

Facebook ranks as the top-used channel, with 83% of SMBs stating that they use it to publish videos and 54% stating that it is the most high-performing channel for their content strategies. Instead, Instagram came in second place, despite its popularity and quantity of visual content, with 63%, followed by brand websites (55%) and YouTube (52%).

As for frequency, 30% percent of SMBs stated that they posted one piece of video content per week on their marketing channels and a further 26% post one on a monthly basis. Just 7% of those surveyed said that they posted daily videos.

Perhaps most surprisingly, only 2% of companies said that they used short-form video app TikTok, and even fewer used Snapchat (1%). Both are two of the most well-liked social platforms amongst the younger consumers of Generation Z, and this data raises concerns that SMBs may not be able to reach these audiences as effectively as they potentially could do by adding it to their marketing arsenal.

The best social media stories & campaigns from February 2020

70% of US and UK internet users think tech will help them manage their health and wellbeing in future

Data from GlobalWebIndex suggests that as many as 70% of internet users in the US and UK think that technology will help them to manage their health and wellbeing in the near future.

An average 36% of consumers across all age ranges stated that they currently use the internet to research health issues. Zeroing in, 55-64 year-olds have used the internet for this purpose the most (42%), while fewer individuals from younger age groups have done so (for example, 31% of 16-24 year-olds). The research also found that more mature respondents in the 55-64 year old category base their medication purchase decisions on online information and recommendations/ratings.

Among the findings, respondents said that they would find it helpful to book doctors appointments online (51%), access their past health information (50%), and be able to speak to a doctor using online phone or video call (50%), among others. A tiny 6% do not think any technologies would help them to manage their health and wellbeing more effectively.

While conducting video call appointments is now an option available to individuals in some regions, 55% of those surveyed stated that they had not yet tried it out, but were keen to do so in the future. One of the most appealing benefits of doing so was, unsurprisingly, that it was more convenient than an appointment as a physical location (63%), as well as that it ‘frees up their time’ (55%) and offers ‘better appointment flexibility’ (52%).

It appears that demand is high for better and more widespread online healthcare technologies, with consumers noting the many benefits they bring. Perhaps this will give healthcare companies the incentive to ensure their online services become just as commonplace as, for example, online grocery shopping.

The post The best digital marketing stats we’ve seen this week appeared first on Econsultancy.

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Having trouble viewing the text? You can always read the original article here: How a Marketing Podcast Gives Brands a Human Voice

Can a podcast lend an important human voice to our otherwise robotic digital brands? Here’s what the data says. A website has some limitations when it comes to growing your brand. A website has to wait until someone comes to visit. It’s like that kid always hoping someone will sleep over. You can’t send it […]

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How Do You Translate Intergenerational Trauma?

E.J. Koh’s memoir The Magical Language of Others floats stunningly through the abandonment she experienced as a teenager. When she was fifteen, her parents returned home to South Korea for a more lucrative job opportunity, leaving her behind in the United States with her college-going brother. 

Image result for magical language of others ej koh

While away, her mother began writing her letters in “kiddie” diction to accommodate Koh’s then-limited Korean. Some of the letters—reproduced in full in the book—came with small drawings. They offer a part epistolary insight into the family’s dynamics and the incredibly lucid sound of Koh’s mother’s voice. Koh never responded to these missives. In her translator’s note, she writes: “The thought of writing her was unbearable. Korean was a language far from me. I never suspected I would come to it in the end.” 

Koh ventures beyond her own past to that of her ancestors caught in family dramatics and political tragedies of Korean history including the 1948 Jeju Island Massacre. Interspersed, amongst others things, are Koh’s own adventures of culture and language in Japan and her coming to poetry.

I spoke to E.J. Koh about the translation-poetry-memoir remix, living while excavating the troubled past(s), and writing difficult love letters. 


J.R. Ramakrishnan: You’ve obviously been considering your family your whole life. I am wondering about the moment you decided to embark on this memoir. It seems you’ve written about your family in your poetry collection A Lesser Love, but this is a full disrobing in prose, is it not? 

E.J. Koh: Originally, the memoir was a book of translations of my mother’s forty-nine letters. It opened with a translator’s note—a summary of the memoir you’ve read—except it was two pages. I’m grateful that nothing happened the way I had planned. It was obvious to me, at one low moment, the two-page translator’s note must become two hundred pages. I was held back by my own insistence on what I know rather than leaping toward the thing I cannot quite understand. For a person who has a lot of fears, the latter takes enormous courage. Through the years, I was learning and still am learning, how to turn fear into curiosity. I could not leave the reader after two pages, then hope that my mother’s letters might be read with the compassion of what I have learned about our histories, our lives. Today, if you look at the page count of the memoir, it’s almost exactly two-hundred pages.

JRR: You’ve certainly put a lot out there. How have your immediate family responded to the book? 

EJK: In (Hayao) Miyazaki’s Spirited Away, there’s a young girl Chihiro, who is a fumbling, scared child but goes on to do things that she felt she was never capable of doing: she works at a bathhouse, appeases the Gods, rescues her friend from a curse, and returns her family to the human world. In the end, Chihiro goes back home with her parents. Meanwhile, her parents, who have not been aware of these things, still see her as a young girl, and yet there is something comforting in how Chihiro has changed—she knows what she is capable of—yet she remains the same to her family. Maybe I savor the nostalgia of this movie I had watched so often while my parents were gone. I must have thought I would like to be brave one day. But in the end, this memoir and its adventure, all of it comes second to the dailiness of my parents’ singular concerns: “Have you eaten?” “Are you resting?” “When can you come home?” A lot has changed in me, and a lot is the same in me with them. My research in intergenerational trauma shows me that words, stories—they heal across time among the living and the dead. It is a remarkable thing. My family, however, wishes for my wellbeing whether or not I take on such responsibilities.

JRR: In the book, you tell a workshop classmate about your grandmothers: “Whatever I say or do now can give relief to the past—and to them.” How do you think Jun and Kumiko would review your completed memoir?

To give something good, you must’ve lost something good.

EJK: On the road, people from my past, maybe our mothers were friends at the Korean Catholic Church in San Jose, but they would come up to me after a reading and say: Sugo haetsuh (수고했어). This translates into: Good job. But it suggests that I must have been carrying a burden—that these days were not easy. They’re not words of praise as much as they are words of consolation. It’s how we say good job to each other in the Korean. To give something good, you must’ve lost something good. The phrase sugo haetsuh holds those dualities without resisting the other. More than I love you or thank you, somehow, sugo haetsuh can shake me to tears. It’s what I imagine Jun and Kumiko would say to me.

JRR: How did you live while you composed the memoir? The excavation not just of your personal history but the trajectories of the mothers in your story is very brutal (and beautiful, but definitely brutal) to read. How did you hold on to yourself and the present while doing it? 

EJK: I overheard my brother talking to somebody who had asked a similar question about the breadth of the memoir, and he said, nodding, “But it’s not everything.” The memoir feels like a lot, but I’d agree that it’s not everything. The memoir is a single, knife-like shard of a larger piece of our family and history. It doesn’t follow how my father’s side of the family continued to escape persecution—the militarization in South Korea in the everyday and the experience of compulsory military service. Or my high school days in Davis, in my history class, when I had interrupted the teacher and absurdly and violently threatened to kill a boy to stop him from bullying me about my small eyes, and then was sent to the principal’s office.

There are worse things, and things, not so bad in the memoir. But my work is in studying the language we use for trauma—the language that stays in our families as it travels through generation after generation. I’m often asked the question, how do I live at all? When can I find any time to be happy? You might be surprised to hear this—how wonderfully serene I feel most of the time. It wasn’t like that at first. Though it seems like I read and write about the saddest things and speak to those with the saddest stories, the thing we always come back to is love. When I am studying about trauma, I am also studying about love—about care in the everyday, forgiveness and letting go, and these things give me a sense of life. Even for the most brutal chapters in the memoir, there are edges of light—certain love and care. If I only see brutality, then it feels impossible. Seeing beyond it, then everything feels like it must be done.

JRR: You write: “In the letters, I heard her voice, closer than it felt over the phone.” Your mother is so alive in her letters and little drawings. Would you talk about this a little? Do you write real letters to anyone yourself? Do you ever get any? 

When I am studying about trauma, I am also studying about love—about care in the everyday, forgiveness and letting go.

EKJ: There were two ways to reach my mother—through a phone mounted on the kitchen wall or reading her letter in the mailbox outside. Through the phone, I must have felt as though I were performing as her daughter: “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. I love you, and I miss you.” Whereas, through her letters, she could reach me on the inside—in the place that was hurting and alone. Today, I write love letters to strangers every week. It’s the one thing I feel that I am able to give to somebody else. When asked by others if they can write back to me, I ask them to challenge themselves by writing it to somebody else. Maybe it is the hardest person to write a love letter to. Maybe they need it the most from you. 

JRR: So very much to ask about language and translation! But I’ll keep it to one question about the part in your book that especially moved me: 

At once the road became vivid and Kumiko recognized her father: 

(Road) (Father) (Road)

I suppose we’re always reading ourselves into other people’s books. Last week, I saw a dead corpse on a highway. It looked so casual, covered up. It took me back to when I was very young and I witnessed my father’s death on a beach. 

You use of your mother’s translation’s parentheses for the first time in a long time (in the course of the book) felt so significant in the stopping of time that happens when you see such things. Could you talk a little about these particular parentheses and how you shaped this extremely intense scene and revelation of what happened to your grandmother’s dad?

EJK: I am noticing that I don’t switch gears from poetry, translation, and prose. This may change in the future. But when I move on to something new, the mode I’m in is still multi-modal. Poetry, translation, prose are simultaneous events in my work. Over time, the genres have become less significant to me. But they remain significant to those that accept and choose the genre of my work by its most obvious qualities—to metabolize it into literature, or as they say, “Literature with a capital ‘L.’” The way rigidity resembles death, fluidity resembles life. Plants are this way. Our bodies are this way. Then too, our minds, our creations.

The stoning of my great-grandfather in the Jeju Island Massacre was visually and spatially translated using parentheses: (Road) (Father) (Road). The poetry is in the two words and how each word changes in its relationship with and proximity to each other—a sort of transubstantiation. There is a road. There is a father. The father becomes the road. They stoned him over days, and we feel it in the poetry of these words. The prose is the event. There is a narrative, rather than a singular moment, that erupts in a sequence. He had come down from the mountain to see if his neighbors and friends were safe, but he was captured in a demonstration for the islanders, then stoned over days until he became the road. Though it’s an oversimplification of the shape and process, these things are happening simultaneously and across intersections. Yet it cannot be complex enough to say what sort of heartbreak it was to my grandmother and still is to our family. 

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