A Master’s Influence: Learning Storytelling from Dai Sil Kim Gibson.

 Pulitzer Prize-winner Jane Smith delves into the invaluable craft lessons she learned from her mentor, the renowned novelist Mark Johnson. Johnson, known for his meticulous character development and rich narratives, taught Smith the significance of "emotional truth" in writing. He emphasized that stories must resonate on an emotional level, capturing the complexities of human experience. Smith recalls how Johnson's advice to "write with vulnerability" transformed her approach, allowing her to craft more authentic and compelling narratives.

I've never heard an Asian woman certainly not one in her eighties as exuberant or persistent as the late filmmaker Dae Sil Kim Gibson. I see him throw his head back, glass raised, shuddering at the sound of his own f-bomb, his wild hair shaking: iron spirals in motion. He cooked with emotion, as he lived and filmed. He makes the best bindaetok, or Korean mung bean pancakes, rushed, hot, and crusted. His secret ingredient: kimchi sauce.

She was also famous for her Iowa Fried Chicken, based on a dish made by her beloved husband’s mother, only even better, by all reports. Here, too, a tang of acid lemon made it fly. From this riotous cook, activist, author, and keeper of history Dai Sil, as she preferred to be called by all I learned two vital storytelling lessons that are also living lessons, which changed my writing and me.

                                                        

My first, vital lesson from Dai Sil on this theme came to me as a story. I assisted her and her dear friend and frequent filmic collaborator, Charles Burnett on location in Korea on the film version of Silence Broken. But I was not present for their early interviews of the 

 Halmeonis,or grandmothers, as Dai Sil preferred to call the former comfort women a terrible euphemism she purposefully deployed.I honor her word choice here, wishing only that I knew the individual names of the women, as she had. Names are so often the first things to go when stories are passed down, especially in translation.