Pump Up Your Book Chats with Ian Haight, author of ‘Magnolia and Lotus’

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ABOUT IAN HAIGHT

Ian Haight was a co-organizer and translator for the UN’s global poetry readings held annually in Pusan, Korea, from 2002-4. He has been awarded 5 translation grants from the Daesan Foundation, Korea Literature Translation Institute, and Baroboin Buddhist Foundation for the translation, editing, promotion, and publication of Korean literature. Ian is the editor of Zen Questions and Answers from Korea (2010), and along with T’ae-yŏng Hŏ, the translator of Borderland Roads: Selected Poems of Kyun Hŏ (2009) both from White Pine Press. Ian’s translations, essays, poems, and interviews have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Writer’s Chronicle, Barrow Street and Hyundae Buddhist News, among many other publications.

For more information, please visit ianhaight.com.

His latest book is Magnolia and Lotus: Selected Poems of Hyesim

Q: Does your book have an underlying message that readers should know about?

There’s not really a message per se, but there is an intention. I hope readers take note of the figurative language in the poems, and hard as it may be, the suggestion of spiritual experience within this language. How Hyesim may be talking about his spiritual experience in the poems inspired me to do committed translation work on this project. I hope readers read the introduction and translation notes; some signposts for understanding the figurative language are there.

Q: Besides books, what else do you write? Do you write for publications?

Well, my hope is that whatever I write, eventually it will end up in some kind of publication. I don’t really do personal journaling. Other genres I’ve worked with include regular poetry, short story fiction, novels, essays, and novellas. I haven’t really published any fiction of any kind though. Just publishing books of poetry in translation is already quite an effort.

Q: Would you like to tell us about your home life? Where you live? Family? Pets?

My home life is kind of frenetic, not because of me personally but my kids. Two of my sons are in high school and active in sports and other extra curriculars. My daughter is entering third grade and wants to be as busy as her brothers, so between the three of them I sometimes might not get home until 9 or 10 PM on a weeknight.

Currently I live in Guam, an island in the Marianas chain where “America’s Day Begins.” Guam is on the equator so it can get quite hot. Though the fresh tropic fruit is really delicious, we try to stay indoors except for mornings and evenings. The ocean and ocean-side landscape is beautiful though—we live in a tropical paradise.

My family hasn’t done well with pets because owing to my work we travel around a lot and haven’t been able to put down roots very well (I work for the federal government overseas). My daughter desperately wanted a dog so we finally relented and got a shih-tzu and named him Sparkie. As of this writing Sparkie’s less than a year old but doing well as far as shih-tzu’s go. He knows his name, can obey some commands (sit, stay, come), and is for the most part housebroken.

Q: Can you tell us a little about your childhood?

I grew up in Lowell, MI, a farm town nearby Grand Rapids. It didn’t feel like it because my parents divorced but in many ways it was an idyllic childhood. Before becoming a teen we lived by a river so summers and after school were spent biking around the river and exploring the town and nearby areas. Looking back I was certainly of a different mindset than many kids I work with today: I thought nothing of biking several miles with fishing gear in tow for an afternoon of fishing or hiking the miles of hills and forest behind our house, pretending to be some medieval ranger.

Q: Where’s your favorite place to write at home?

Usually my house is so action-packed I can’t really get much of anything done, so I tend to do writing activities at work. When the day is done my workplace empties so it’s nice and quiet. Often I have to stay in that part of town anyway because of my kids’ sports, so it’s good to stay at my job late and work on writing for maybe an hour or two.

Q: What do you do to get away from it all?

Sometimes I’ll go for a massage. Massage is kind of a big thing in South East Asia, so it was fairly new to me as a health practice given my Midwest background. Massages aren’t too expensive in Guam and they’re covered by my insurance so getting a massage has been a great thing for feeling good physically and mentally.

Q: What was the first thing you did as far as promoting your book?

So much happened so fast, but I do remember one important thing was to make an author’s account at Goodreads. A few weeks after that I did a book promotion give away. For many writers these are obvious steps but for literary translators I know of very few people—well no one, really, utilizing the possibilities of Goodreads. I’m glad I did. My book sales are about normal now but for initial sales and print run this book has done better than any of my others.

Q: Are you familiar with the social networks and do you actively participate?

There are so many social network outlets and for authors—well, it does seem there are authors who do nothing but social networking. I am seeing a kind of movement against too much blind, untargeted social networking. There are some authors out there who think instagram is unnecessary. I know other authors will only work with Goodreads. I’m someone in between. When all things are working normally I try to Tweet and Facebook once a day. I have an author’s page at Facebook so I rotate messages between my regular Facebook page and my author page because even if the same people are on my regular Facebook page and my author page, sometimes they’ll miss the post. I blog once a week and depending on what I blog that goes out on all my social networks. Usually I’ll repost my blog post at my Goodreads blog. To me that seems like a lot but for many people that’s next to nothing!

Q: What is the most frustrating part of being an author?

One of the most frustrating things has been trying to keep up with everything in terms of social media. All the social media and networking required can be a real chore. There’s been some buzz on outlets like Bookbaby that an author shouldn’t spend more than 20% of writing time on social media. I don’t know how realistic that number is when you have a book released. Social media has taken up almost all my writing time since my book was published, but that may be because I’m learning about so much as I try new things—like this virtual tour, for example.

Q: If you had one wish, what would that be?
The usual: end war, poverty, hunger, disease; I suppose if it had to wrapped up into one wish it would be to end all human suffering. But the wish granter might then decide to lobotomize all human life or simply end it. A dangerous wish to end suffering—one that even Jesus and the Buddha could not be granted.

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Question of the Day

How do you make sales happen for you?

A lot of hard work! I sponsor a lot of on line parties, festivals and contests. Book sales don’t magically happen, believe me. An author has to work hard to earn her readers. And then she has to work hard to keep them by giving them something they’ll enjoy reading. I try hard to make my books worth a reader’s time.

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