Episode 123
Astonishing Stories: Rosa Kwon Easton on the Power of Generational Memory -123
Curious about how family history transforms into page-turning fiction? Listen in as Rosa Kwon Easton reveals what it was like to turn stories hidden in her ancestry into her moving novel, "White Mulberry." Author Express host Kristi Leonard chats with Rosa about her grandmother’s secret past, cultural symbolism, and the complex feelings of balancing multiple identities. Find out how a Korean tradition involving a baby’s future shaped Rosa’s life and writing, and hear the challenges and surprises of bringing long-forgotten voices to light. If you love historical fiction, untold women’s stories, or books about personal discovery, this conversation will spark your curiosity and leave you wanting more.
Rosa Kwon Easton is a Korean American lawyer, library trustee, and author of the debut novel, White Mulberry, which is an Amazon First Reads Editor’s Pick and a “Best Historical Fiction” book by PARADE and BookBub. Easton is an Anaphora Writing Residency Fellow and her work has been published in CRAFT Literary, StoryCenter.org, Writer’s Digest and elsewhere. A graduate of Smith College, Columbia University, and Boston College Law School, she resides with her husband and Maltipoo in sunny Southern California. Her sequel, Red Seal, is due out in 2026.
She can be found at:
Website - www.rosakwoneaston.com
Instagram - @rosakwoneaston
Facebook - Rosa Kwon Easton
Support your local bookstore & this podcast by getting your copy of White Mulberry at Bookshop.org
A little about today's host-
Kristi Leonard is a modern Renaissance woman deeply rooted in the book world. When she's not immersed in crafting novels, she's orchestrating writing retreats through her business, Writers in the Wild, or lending her voice to non-fiction audiobooks. She leads the Women’s Fiction Writers Association as the president of the board, and interviews her writer pals as one of the hosts of the Author Express Podcast. She will start querying her first book in 2024.
Beyond the realm of words, Kristi embraces the Florida sunshine by hiking with her writer-hiker group and leisurely walks on the beach. She and her husband juggle a couple side businesses and take turns sharing the couch with their goofy Golden-doodle, Maddie. Kristi enjoys travel adventures with her twin sister and living vicariously through her grown children. You can learn more about her and connect at: https://linktr.ee/kristileonard.
Be sure to follow or subscribe to Author Express wherever you listen to podcasts and to follow us on Instagram @AuthorExpressPodcast
Learn more about our hosts, the guests we've had, and their books -
Transcript
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Kristi Leonard [:Welcome to Author Express. Thanks for checking us out. This is the podcast where you give us fifteen minutes of your time, and we give you a chance to hear the voice behind the pages and get to know some of your favorite writers in a new light. I'm one of your hosts, Kristi Leonard, owner and host of Writers in the Wild retreats, nonfiction voiceover artist, and president of WFWA. I'm excited to share with you a little about today's guest. Today's guest is Rosa Kwon Easton, a former attorney turned novelist whose powerful book, White Mulberry, is inspired by her grandmother's life in the nineteen thirties Korea and Japan. Born in Seoul and raised in Los Angeles, Rosa brings heart, history, and a fierce sense of purpose to her storytelling. She's passionate about shining a light on overlooked voices and the quiet strength of women across generations.
Kristi Leonard [:White Mulberry is her love letter to the past and a compelling reminder of the resilience that still echoes today. Welcome.
Rosa Kwon Easton [:Thank you, Christy. It's my honor to be here today.
Kristi Leonard [:Oh, my goodness. It's so great to have you. I just am thrilled after meeting you, I think, last October, maybe September in Alexandria, Virginia. So excited to have read your book. What a beautiful story. Such a beautiful story. We're gonna get to it. But we always start with the same question, and I'm putting you on a spot.
Kristi Leonard [:Because you have some really, really interesting places that you can choose from. Like, when we say, tell us about where you're from. It could be where you originated. It could be where you are now. It could be where you went to college. So what do you think? What's the most interesting place?
Rosa Kwon Easton [:When you ask where I'm from, I automatically think of many places, as you mentioned. And it's hard for me to determine that, and that's part of what's in my novel as well as being sort of torn between two worlds. And am I American and my Korean? I was born in Seoul, but I lived in Los Angeles since I was seven. And my whole life, I sort of shifted and wavered between being American and being Korean, and am I Korean enough, am I American enough? So I guess I'm from multiple places, and I and I think one of the messages of my book is to celebrate our multiple identities.
Kristi Leonard [:Definitely. Absolutely true. Well, why don't we get to know you a little bit? What is a tradition or family ritual from your childhood that still lives in you today? But there were nods of it in your book.
Rosa Kwon Easton [:Well, I don't remember this one very well because I was one when it was celebrated for me, but I remember extending that tradition when we moved to The US with my own children. And in Korea, when you're one, it's a celebration because you've made it. You know? You've survived the first year of life, and there's all sorts of things presented in front of you like yarn and money and coins and noodles and food. And the child is supposed to pick something that grabs their curiosity, and that's supposed to determine who they're going to be in life. That's crazy. The babies are crying. You know, why would why have to do this? But then when they calm down, they pick something, and I picked a pencil.
Kristi Leonard [:You're kidding. No. Really?
Rosa Kwon Easton [:It's true.
Kristi Leonard [:Awesome.
Rosa Kwon Easton [:Yeah. So I guess it does represent. And my children, I think they may have chosen, like, a pen. One may have chosen yarn, which is supposed to represent long life. Oh. So it's very symbolic, and that's why there's a symbolism of the tree in my novel. There's a lot of metaphors and proverbs and life lessons that I have in my culture that I hope I shared in my novel as well.
Kristi Leonard [:Oh, that is so cool. I love that. I don't think I've had an answer that's nearly as interesting with that one ever. So fun. Well, let's get to the fun stuff. Let's talk about your book. We, like, challenge our authors by asking them, how would you summarize your book in one sentence?
Rosa Kwon Easton [:You mentioned that this is inspired by my grandmother's life, and it's the story of a woman coming of age in nineteen thirties, Japan occupied Korea. And she is torn between two worlds because she's passing as Japanese, as a Korean woman, and she has to reclaim her true self in order to protect herself and her family when circumstances arise and that decision has to be made.
Kristi Leonard [:I think that that having read the book, you did pretty good.
Rosa Kwon Easton [:So hard to summarize in one sentence.
Kristi Leonard [:Oh, it's actually a historical novel. I think that's a real challenge.
Rosa Kwon Easton [:Yes. It is. The essential elements of identity, love, resilience, capturing all of that in a book is not easy. And, you know, frankly, when I was writing this book, I didn't realize I was writing women's fiction. I was just writing a story that was true to me and true to what I thought was the life of my character. So when my agent pitched it and when my publisher, Lake Union, bought it, they said, this is a wonderful women's fiction. And then, of course, I joined women's fiction writers association.
Rosa Kwon Easton [:I was surrounded by women who have written in this genre, and I was just elated that I could share this space with such other talents. Absolutely. And finding a light on women's journeys and their personal struggles.
Kristi Leonard [:Yeah. Well, your book actually explores identity in such a layered way. So how did you think about her transformation as she adapted to her life in Japan? Like, it's so fascinating to me.
Rosa Kwon Easton [:Yes. Well, it was shaped
Kristi Leonard [:based on your mom, your grandmother, right?
Rosa Kwon Easton [:Yes. And it's shaped by my interviews with her. I had an opportunity to interview her before she passed away at 95, The ripe old age of 95, and she actually moved to The US as well. We moved. So, you know, not only did she navigate that world, the occupation, World War two to the Korean War. She immigrated to The States when she was 60, and I'm 60 this year or last year and just published my debut novel at 60. So there are a lot of parallels, and I also spent my junior year abroad in college in Kyoto, and I didn't realize I had this whole extended family that lived in Japan.
Rosa Kwon Easton [:So I had a chance to ask them about their life, how their immigration experience differed from my own. So I was able to gather a lot of information in order to inform the scenes and the layering, I think, that you talked about in my in Yes. So it came from a lot of place.
Kristi Leonard [:Right. Well, identity is definitely the center of this whole thing, which I think even for me, a white cis woman, got me thinking about identity. It was so moving and just lovely, such a beautiful book.
Rosa Kwon Easton [:Oh, I appreciate that, Kristi. And that's I think the beauty of books is you don't know how it's going to impact others and you hope you're telling a universal story, but you don't know and you don't know how it's going to impact the reader. And that leads me to, I think, one of your other questions you're going to ask, but I'll let you ask it.
Kristi Leonard [:Oh, yeah. That that comes a little bit later.
Rosa Kwon Easton [:Okay. I'll save it for later then.
Kristi Leonard [:Save it for later. So what was it about your grandmother's story? Was it just something that like a story that people were always telling? Was it something you heard from your parents or your grandmother herself? Like, how what was it that sparked the idea to turn this into a novel for you?
Rosa Kwon Easton [:No. It and in fact, it was the opposite. It was secret. It was never really talked about and I just thought it was so fascinating. I found her nursing and midwife certificates dated 1938, 1939, and they were written in Japanese, but had a Korean name, surname on it. And I thought, wow. Here's this, like, my grandmother, you know, this old person, my grandmother, who was a nurse in another life and was also a midwife and she practiced, she passed this exam in Japan and Japanese is not her first language. I know she was born outside Pyongyang.
Rosa Kwon Easton [:So how did she do this? She is so strong. I needed a role model in learning.
Kristi Leonard [:When did you start questioning? How old were you when you started questioning and learning?
Rosa Kwon Easton [:Well, her story, I really learned when I was in college.
Rosa Kwon Easton [:That is when my sort of awakening happened because I think by the before I went to college, I was really trying to embrace the American side of me and trying to fit in and belong. And I think when we reach a certain age and we go off to college, we question who we are.
Kristi Leonard [:100%
Rosa Kwon Easton [:So this has been a forty year self discovery process.
Kristi Leonard [:Wow.
Rosa Kwon Easton [:But a really gratifying one.
Kristi Leonard [:Well, it's gratifying for the reader. I'll just say that. That's awesome.
Rosa Kwon Easton [:Yeah.
Kristi Leonard [:What surprised you the most in, like, the process of turning family history into fiction? Like, it's one thing to have, like, a family story that, you know, you find interesting, but to then take that and mold it into a story, I mean, I know as a writer, just taking any idea and molding it into a story is really difficult. There must be things that you wanna keep as close to historical, but then and then there's traditional research. You gotta learn all about that time period and then mining your family for details.
Rosa Kwon Easton [:Yeah. The most surprising part was how far back I had to go in her life to really understand who she was because I was gonna start at the inciting incident, which I thought was, like, the most exciting thing that happened, and that ended up being the climax of my novel.
Kristi Leonard [:Wow.
Rosa Kwon Easton [:So I was peeling back the layers and wondering, like, gosh, what was she like as a child? What made her make the decisions that she made? And what was her wound? You know? What was her childhood like? Because we're so you know, are shaped by our childhood experiences. And she didn't really talk about that part. So I think my grandmother so I was really free in that space to imagine what her life must have been like knowing the family structure. There was a lot of loss before the ripe age of 11, when it begins. And the other surprise is that my mother who's not fluent in English, she had a difficult relationship with her mother-in-law who is Miyoung, my grandmother in the story, just as mother in laws and daughter in laws have usually. But after she listened to my book, she realized that she can listen to my book on Audible, and I turned it to 70% speed for her. She listened to it and she said she had a newfound understanding of my grandmother that she never had because she never looked beyond the time, you know, after she got married to my dad and that was a difficult time. So she didn't really understand her childhood and what it could have been, and I helped her understand that more with my book.
Rosa Kwon Easton [:So I was grateful for that.
Kristi Leonard [:That's amazing. That is so amazing. So has the rest of the family read the book, and what was their reaction?
Rosa Kwon Easton [:Yeah. My father was very helpful. He sat in in my interviews with my grandmother because my Korean is limited having come at seven, so he helped fill in some of the gaps. And at first, he was very much a stickler on, like, all the facts. You know? Like, this is not quite right. You know? This is the older brother, not the younger brother, and I kept having to explain to him that this is the I have to help move the story forward, and this is the most credible way and explains, you know, there's cause and effect of decisions that are made. And then when I asked him recently, I said, you know, that incident that happened in '47, was that '47 or '48? And he said to me, who cares? It's fiction.
Kristi Leonard [:It's so awesome.
Rosa Kwon Easton [:So my family members, have been involved and, you know, in different ways, but they're very supportive. And I'm glad that I turned it into fiction because I felt like I was able to tell the story in the way that I wanted to tell it, and I could bring my experiences into the story that works good to me that I thought could be true to her as well. So I think I made the right choice, although it took me ten years to actually finish writing it.
Kristi Leonard [:And so can we have it in our hot little fists? It doesn't matter how long it took to get there. It's perfect the way it is. Where is the best place for folks to find you? I spent a lot of time on your website. So I'm gonna guess you want them to be on your website.
Rosa Kwon Easton [:Yes. My website would be great. It has all the information about my newsletter, my social media, my journey, my sequel that's coming up. So, that's it. Right?
Kristi Leonard [:When's that coming out?
Rosa Kwon Easton [:Well, I have a deadline.
Kristi Leonard [:Good.
Rosa Kwon Easton [:September 1 for my first draft due to my editors, and then it's supposed to come out in, fall of next year, 2026
Kristi Leonard [:So Oh, that's fast. That's great.
Rosa Kwon Easton [:In ten years to write this one and ten months to write the next one.
Kristi Leonard [:Be careful what happens when you're successful. Alright. So the last question, what book or story inspires you the most?
Rosa Kwon Easton [:Oh, well, this was such a fun question for me because it was so easy. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith was the inspiration for my title, and White Mulberry, a tree, and a strong female protagonist who's coming of age in the same period of time in the early twentieth century in two very different places, but had such similar experiences. So I think the coming of age years are universal in terms of emotion and growth, and so that book was my inspiration.
Kristi Leonard [:There you go. I love it. That's perfect. And definitely look for the cover of her book because it's gorgeous.
Rosa Kwon Easton [:Yes. I love it. Gorgeous.
Kristi Leonard [:Alright. Well, Rosa Kwon Easton, thank you so much for being with me today, and I definitely recommend this book.
Rosa Kwon Easton [:Kristi, thank you so much for this honor. I really appreciate it.
Kristi Leonard [:Thanks for joining us. We hope you take a second to give us stars or a review on your favorite podcasting platform, and we'll be here again next Wednesday. Follow us on Instagram at Author Express Podcast to see who's coming up next. Don't forget, keep it express, but keep it interesting.
