This episode is proudly sponsored by SCRIVENER.

Hey Storytellers! We have award-winning and bestselling author Jean Kwok on the show today.

For the very first time on our show, we’ll be having a special give-away for this episode! Pay special attention to Jean’s interview and tweet your favorite quotefrom her episode and we’ll be gifting a copy of Jean’s newest book MAMBO IN CHINATOWN to two lucky listeners! Make sure to hashtag #88CupsJK so I can find your quotes! The deadline for this giveaway contest is Wednesday, October 14th at 10am PST/1pm EST. And the 2 lucky winners will be announced that same day.

This is a very special episode for me (listen to the episode’s introduction to find out why) and I’m beyond thrilled to share Jean’s interview with you!

“We are not competing with each other; we are all trying to speak some kind of fundamental human truth.”-Jean Kwok

“Fix it on the page, don’t fix it in your head”-Jean Kwok

From the bestselling author of Girl in Translation, a novel about a young woman torn between her family duties in Chinatown and her escape into the world of ballroom dancing.

Twenty-two-year-old Charlie Wong grew up in New York’s Chinatown, the older daughter of a Beijing ballerina and a noodle maker. Though an ABC (American-born Chinese), Charlie’s entire world has been limited to this small area. Now grown, she lives in the same tiny apartment with her widower father and her eleven-year-old sister, and works— miserably—as a dishwasher.

But when she lands a job as a receptionist at a ballroom dance studio, Charlie gains access to a world she hardly knew existed, and everything she once took to be certain turns upside down. Gradually, at the dance studio, awkward Charlie’s natural talents begin to emerge. With them, her perspective, expectations, and sense of self are transformed—something she must take great pains to hide from her father and his suspicion of all things western. As Charlie blossoms, though, her sister becomes chronically ill. When Pa insists on treating his ailing child exclusively with eastern practices to no avail, Charlie is forced to try to reconcile her two selves and her two worlds— eastern and western, old world and new—to rescue her little sister without sacrificing her newfound confidence and identity.

“Sweet and lovely, filled with old-world tradition, Chinese superstition, and the complicated dance of forbidden love.”—JAMIE FORD, NYTBESTSELLING AUTHOR OF HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET

Jean Kwok is the New York Times and international bestselling author of the award-winning novels Girl in Translation and Mambo in Chinatown. Her work has been published in 17 countries and taught in universities, colleges and high schools across the world. She has been selected for many honors including theAmerican Library Association Alex Award, the Chinese American Librarians Association Best Book Award, and Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers. Jean’s writing has been featured in Time, The New York Times, USA Today, Newsweek, The Chicago Tribune, Entertainment Weekly, Vogue, People, Real Simple and O, The Oprah Magazine, among others.

Jean immigrated from Hong Kong to Brooklyn when she was five and worked in a Chinatown clothing factory for much of her childhood while living in an unheated, roach-infested apartment. In between her undergraduate degree at Harvard and MFA in fiction at Columbia, she worked for three years as a professional ballroom dancer. Jean lives in the Netherlands with her husband, two boys and three cats, and is working on her next novel. A Dutch television documentary with English subtitles was filmed about Jean and her work.

Head over to Jean's show notes page here!