Going to Tahiti with Mary H. K. Choi

First Draft Episode #208: Mary H. K. Choi

Mary H. K. Choi, New York Times bestselling author of Emergency
Contact, and host of podcasts Hey, Cool Job and Hey, Cool Life!.
Her newest YA contemporary book, Permanent Record, is out now! We
talk about addiction and fiction, loving and writing boys who
fight against toxic masculinity, and fighting against “I’ll be
perfect when…” thoughts.
Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode



Stephen King, John Grisham, and airport novels were some of
the first things Mary picked up when she moved to Texas and
became a reader




Mary compares moving, learning to read, and realizing she
could *remember* what she read as Bradley Cooper discovering
the mind-expanding possibilities in Limitless (movie)




Mass Appeal was the graffiti magazine Mary went to work for,
and they now do documentaries, including the recent Wu-Tang
doc, Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men (tv series)




“Like. Flirt. Ghost: A Journey Into the Social Media Lives of
Teens,” an article Mary wrote for WIRED, is fantastic and
everyone should read it




Hold the door open for other writers. Be like Hodor




“Mary H. K. Choi Wanted to Write a Book Where ‘High-Key
Nothing Happens,” by Joanna Mikas and Tracy Ma for The New
York Times




Bo Burnam, comedian and writer and director of Eighth Grade
(movie)




Shanna the She-Devil (comic book) and Lady Deadpool (comic
book)




Mary wrote D. J. Khaled’s The Keys (book)




Edward Orloff with McCormick is Mary’s current agent




Zareen Jaffery is Mary’s editor at Simon & Schuster.
Zareen has also worked with Jenny Han on To All the Boys I’ve
Loved Before and The Summer I Turned Pretty series (listen to
her episode of First Draft here), and with Siobhan Vivian on
The Last Boy and Girl in the World and Stay Sweet (hear
Siobhan on a live panel episode of First Draft here).
However, Morgan Matson’s editor is actually Justin Chanda,
also at Simon & Schuster (listen to Morgan’s First Draft
episodes here and here)!




“I love my mom a not-normal amount and it makes me crazy,” an
article Mary wrote for Aeon about her mom which went viral




The Joaquin Phoenix movie, Her, is akin to how Mary felt
exploring the idea of falling in love over text




Mary references Justin Bieber’s first appearance on The Ellen
Show. Watch it and be transported to a time when he was a
mere bb




There are some similarities between Permanent Record and the
Hugh Grant/Julia Roberts film Notting Hill, which is a
classic




Mary and I are now both obsessed with Brené Brown, author of
Daring Greatly and The Gifts of Imperfection




The New York slang that Mary uses in the book is a love
letter to Desus & Mero (who went from YouTube channel to
their podcast, Bodega Boys, to a VICE and now a Showtime TV
show) and Mary’s friends who run the podcast Chillin Island




Maslov’s Hierarchy of Needs is awesome but it does not
include mental health




Mary is a part of Overeaters Anonymous




Holly Black talked to me in her episode (listen here) about
the depressive state she fell into after publishing her first
book


I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

Have a question about writing or creativity for Sarah Enni or her
guests to answer? To leave a voicemail, call (818) 533-1998. You
can also email the podcast at
firstdraftwithsarahenni@gmail.com. 
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Every Tuesday, I speak to storytellers like Veronica Roth, author
of Divergent; Linda Holmes, author and host of NPR’s Pop Culture
Happy Hour podcast; Jonny Sun, internet superstar, illustrator of
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Gmorning, Gnight! and author and illustrator
of Everyone’s an Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too;  Michael
Dante  DiMartino, co-creator of Avatar: The Last Airbender;
John August, screenwriter of Big Fish, Charlie’s Angels, and
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; or Rhett Miller, musician and
frontman for The Old 97s. Together, we take deep dives on their
careers and creative works.



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