Margaret Juhae Lee: This Book Is For the Next Generation

Margaret Juhae Lee is an Oakland-based writer and a former literary editor of The Nation magazine. She has been the recipient of a Bunting Fellowship from Harvard University, and a Korean Studies Fellowship from the Korean Foundation. She is also a Tin House scholar, and has been awarded residencies at the Mesa Refuge, the Anderson Center, and Mineral School.

In 2020, she was named “Person of the Year” by the Sangcheol Cultural Welfare Foundation in Kongju, South Korea, for her work in honoring her grandfather, Patriot Lee Chul Ha. Her articles, reviews, and interviews have been published in The Nation, Newsday, Elle, ARTnews, The Advocate, The Progressive and The Rumpus. Follow her on X (Twitter), Facebook, and Instagram.

In this interview, Margaret discusses the process of uncovering family history in her debut literary memoir, Starry Field: A Memoir of Lost History, her advice for other writers, and more!

Name: Margaret Juhae Lee
Literary agent: Ayla Zuraw-Friedland, Frances Goldin Agency
Book title: Starry Field: A Memoir of Lost History
Publisher: Melville House
Release date: March 5, 2024
Genre/category: Memoir
Elevator pitch: In Starry Field: A Memoir of Lost History, journalist Margaret Juhae Lee uncovers her family’s lost history, which had been obscured by the shadow of Korea’s colonial era for decades. Especially through interviews with her grandmother, the author’s journey leads to a sense of recognition she’s been missing her entire life and to building a family in someplace called home.

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What prompted you to write this book?

Years ago, my father began this quest to discover his father but fell ill and lost parts of his memory. At the time, I was in journalism school and was learning the tools to uncover my family’s history—through interviewing experts, archival research, and conducting oral histories with surviving family members who knew my grandfather. In discovering truths about my grandfather’s life, I realized I had the story of a lifetime.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

I started this book project in early 1997, around the time I was finishing up grad school in journalism at NYU and starting my job as the assistant literary editor at The Nation. I first approached the book as an extended piece of investigative journalism about a forgotten student revolutionary in colonial Korea who died in 1936, a person who happened to be my paternal grandfather.

As I started writing, I realized that the book extended beyond journalism and into literary memoir—a deeper investigation of self-identity. To best serve my family’s transcontinental, multi-generational story, I needed the book to read more like a novel than journalism. As an avid fiction reader, I started to read novels in a different way, to see how they are structured, how characters are developed, how to set a scene.

Part of the reason it took so long to finish the book is because I had to relearn how to write, and the writing begat more writing, as I struggled to understand what this search for family history really meant. That understanding did not arrive until I had a family and children. This book is for the next generation.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

The entire publishing process was a series of learning moments! Publishing is such an opaque industry with its own rules and processes. Querying an agent, writing a book proposal, and going on submission were the most anxiety-inducing parts of the journey. Waiting for responses was so hard! Because I had worked on my book for so long and had a fairly polished full manuscript, once I had a book deal, the editing process went smoothly. I wrote a preface and epilogue, but the rest of the book pretty much remained the same with some tweaks here and there.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

As a journalist, I had a difficult time quieting my editor brain and allowing myself to just let the words flow during the drafting process. The real writing of this book came after I put all the years of research away and wrote in community in a series of generative writing workshops. I write best when I keep the pen to paper and don’t cross anything out, even though I might feel the urge in the moment.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

Susan Choi wrote an amazing blurb for my book which I hope resonates with readers: “This reconstruction of the lives of Lee’s paternal grandparents is absorbing as much for what is discovered as for what remains undiscoverable.… Starry Field reminds us that even knowing where we came from won’t tell us where we’re going—but it will help along the way.” What’s important is the journey, the quest, not necessarily the result. I hope that readers will relate to the sentiment that delving into family history is a means to learning more about who you are in the present and can maybe even shape the future.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

Find a writing community. Writing with others has been so helpful to me. Join a writing group and participate in an online community, which I did during COVID. Currently, I’m part of a text chain of authors with books coming out in 2024, and it’s been so helpful to go through the publishing process with others.

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