Suka's Farm: An Interview with Ginger Park

Today I welcome Ginger Park to speak about her newest picture book, Suka's Farm, which she co-wrote with her sister Frances, illustrated by Tiffany Chen, published by Albert Whitman. I first came to know about Ginger and Frances while living in South Korea. My headmaster at the international school in which I taught, was friends with them in the states. He shared that their parents were from North Korea. I read one of their picture books about their mother's escape out of the country, My Freedom Trip. And who knew that one day I'd be interviewing them?! 

Ginger Park (l), sister Frances Park (r)

Welcome, Ginger. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

We live in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC. When we’re not writing, you can usually find us at our sweet shop in the heart of the Capital City known as Chocolate Chocolate―our happy place. Customers stop by for their luscious bon bons and real-time chat, and to peruse our book nook of Park sisters’ titles. We’ve been deemed the “Cheers” of chocolate for good reason―our shop is a safe pause from the world’s woes. Whatever is happening out there, stays out there. Our customers have celebrated every book launch party with us, and the goodwill is impossible to describe in words―it touches us squarely in our hearts. Come April 10, our shop will be overflowing with friends and customers for our SUKA’S FARM book launch. We can’t wait! 

Just to give you a little insight into Suka's Farm, here's my short review: The Park Sisters create another book together about one of their father’s experiences as a goat farmer assistant for a Japanese farmer in Korea during a dark period of Japanese occupation. However, even in the most ominous moments, little boy, Kwan, finds a way to help his family. 

1. What inspired you to write Suka's Farm? How did you get the idea?

After our father passed away in 1979, we wanted to immortalize his memory through words. The story was inspired by his impoverished boyhood days growing up during the Japanese occupation of Korea. At age ten, our father’s hungry family prompted him to ask a Japanese farmer for work. Our father rose every morning at dawn to work before and after school, tending a herd of goats. Just like in the book, our mother told us that our father named each of his beloved goats.

2. Did you have to make up any of the details? What kind of research did you do?

Some of the details are from our imaginations. For example, our grandparents weren’t woodcarver and painter―they were pastor and missionary (at a time when less than 4% of the population were Christian). Character names are fictionalized, including the goats’ cute names (we never knew their real names). We carefully researched the Japanese occupation timeline (1910-1945) such as the years Koreans were forced to give up their birth names for Japanese ones.  

3. How do you and your sister Frances collaborate on stories? What's your process?

It’s a magical experience! Truly an organic process. One of us comes up with the idea and drafts out the story, then passes it on to the other. Funny thing is, we never talk about our work in the light of day―it’s our unspoken rule of collaboration. Early on in the 90s, our communications were handwritten comments in margins, eventually progressing to email. Now we use Gmail chat. Once the manuscript is ‘perfect’, we take turns reading the story out loud. Of course, there are always a few edits. When we’re ready to submit to our agent, we do a celebratory high-five.

4. How long did it take to write this story?

The decision to write the picture book came on New Year’s Day two years ago. We were pondering 2023 resolutions when it occurred to us that it was the year our father would turn 100 years old. We looked at each other and said it was time to write that story that had been in our hearts for decades. It was hard condensing our father’s powerful story into a picture book, but it was a fun challenge. We completed the story in a month or so.

5. How long did it take to sell this story?

Our ever-awesome agent, Jennifer Unter, submitted the manuscript to Albert Whitman and Company (publisher of one of our earlier picture books titled GRANDPA’S SCROLL) and received a ‘verbal’ email acceptance on the same day!

6. What do you hope readers take away from reading this book?

If children read SUKA’S FARM and feel hope and inspiration, then we feel we have made a small contribution to the world. The book is a tribute to our father, the story a testament to his spirit during one of Korea’s most tumultuous eras. SUKA’S FARM focuses on small fields and the day-to-day life of a hungry boy with dreams, and of friendship and humanity.  

7. What is your favorite part of the illustrations?

Tiffany Chen’s reimagination of a bygone era is nothing short of masterful. She brought the 1941 Korean landscape to life―the surrounding mountains, the endless fields, the clothing of yore―in exquisite fashion.

8. What was most surprising about the illustrations?

Tiffany's cartoon-like portraits (and we mean that in the most positive light) gently complement a story about the harsh realities of the Japanese occupation of Korea.

9. What advice do you have for writers?

No matter what anyone says, never give up on a project that you love. Keep writing even if it’s for no one else but yourself. You just might surprise the world. 

10. What's next for you?

It’s a secret, but we’re very excited about our next project. Hint―a picture book about our chocolate shop and the power of community.

Oooo, I can't wait. That book sounds delightful and delicious! And I've tasted the chocolates from Ginger & Frances's shop! How fun to sell books and chocolates! Congrats!

Customers at their shop, Chocolate Chocolate

We are the Korean American author-sister team of many award-winning children’s books. Our stories are inspired by our family history and reflect our Korean heritage. We’re delighted to announce the forthcoming publication of MY SISTER’S DOLJABI (October 2025). As mentioned in Publisher’s Weekly: Josh Gregory at Albert Whitman has bought world rights to My Sister's Doljabi, a picture book by Ginger Park and Frances Park, illustrated by Violet Kim. Hoon is helping his parents plan his baby sister's first birthday—the most important birthday for Koreans. The celebration traditionally closes with a fun ceremony called the doljabi (which translates to "birthday grab"), where the baby is placed before a set of symbolic items and encouraged to choose one of the objects, which is thought to predict the baby's future. Publication is set for October 2025; Jennifer Unter at the Unter Agency represented the authors, and April Jones Prince at Studio Goodwin Sturges represented the illustrator.

website: https://www.parksisters.com/

connect: 

Facebook: @ginger.park.31

@bookbabe.frances

Instagram: @gingerpark_ 

@bookbabe.frances

Twitter: @Gingerpark_

Bluesky: @gingerparkwrites.bksy.social

Threads: @gingerpark_

Poetry Month 2025: You Can Be a Poet! Poet Libby VanBuskirk talks about her debut poetry collection ~Christy Mihaly

Greetings, GROGgers. It's National Poetry Month! 

How will you celebrate? Let us know in the comments! And for more poetic inspiration, check out these  prior GROG posts: here, here, and here.

You may be feeling that you're not a poet, or that it's too late for you to learn to write poetry. Today I have the enormous pleasure of introducing someone who proves that you are wrong: poet Libby VanBuskirk, who at 91 years young is currently anticipating the publication of her first poetry collection, Living With Time, by Kelsay Books.

Libby VanBuskirk

Libby and I have been writing partners for many years. Her feedback is always kind and wise. She models a whole-hearted embrace of living authentically, and has dedicated herself to continuing to practice and grow in her writing, finding fresh inspiration in each new decade.  

Libby took a few moments out from her writing regimen to share some thoughts on poetry and on her soon-to-be-published collection, which was inspired, in part, by the loss of her husband in 2019.

GROG: Libby, your forthcoming poetry collection takes its title from your poem "Living With Time." Tell us a little about the book. 

LIBBY: Most of the poems in the book take place at a northern New England lake which feels almost holy to me. Through poetry and living close to the natural world, I have observed and explored the changes that time brings—present, past and future. I am intrigued by the movement of time, how it shapes our lives.

GROG: I found the title poem deeply moving -- you can read it here. Libby, why do you write poetry?

LIBBY: I love the sounds in poetry. I also have seen that the beauty and power of poetry can help us explore themes we sometimes avoid. Poems can lead to thought-provoking discussions about our changing lives, aging, and death.

GROG: Agreed those are topics we sometimes want to avoid. What inspired you to write the poems in your collection?

LIBBY: I was inspired by growing older, by the increasingly common experience of loss, and especially by the sudden loss of my husband by drowning. As some of my poems describe, loss can bring us terrible, shocking moments.

GROG: I'm so sorry that happened, Libby. I think you convey these feelings, moments, and images so beautifully in your poetry. What do you want readers to gain from reading your collection of poems?

LIBBY: I hope my poems help readers see the beauty in life at all ages. And maybe the collection, "Living with Time," can be helpful as a gift to mark an advanced birthday or to give to a relative or friend suffering a period of loss.

GROG: I like that, "an advanced birthday." Tell us about the poems in the collection.

LIBBY: The book includes about 65 poems. Some are lyric and others are formal poems, in forms that I’ve been learning over the past few years. I have loved reading and experimenting with these forms.

GROG: Yes! Poetry forms can be really fun. And how did you select and arrange those 65 poems?

LIBBY: The poems in Living with Time fall into three parts, all centered on the theme of time’s power to change our lives.

Part one probes life’s changes as I see them reflected in the natural world.

In the Part two poems, monumental change comes with my husband's sudden death. These poems address themes such as: How can I live without him, when our lives were so intertwined? Through metaphor and imagery and the clarity of poetry, I reflect on loss as I look for him everywhere and try to bring him back in odd ways, re-visit incidents in our lives together, or want to escape alone to a spot by the sea.

In Part three, the poems are about how I feel ready to grow again, and strive to build a new life through poetry.

GROG: So, it's not about loss only, but time, and living, and growing, and beauty. What steps did you take to get your collection published?

Libby's drafting process: "To Recycle"

LIBBY: It is very hard to get a poetry collection published! But, once I focused on wanting to write and publish poetry, over the last five years, I started submitting and publishing in poetry journals and anthologies.

My publisher, Kelsay Books, publishes both books and The Orchards Poetry Journal. Twice in recent years, the editors there accepted poems I wrote for the journal. I especially appreciated their kind words when they said they loved my work. Their enthusiasm encouraged me to submit my collection to Kelsay for publication, and I am so relieved they accepted it. 

GROG: And of course it takes a village, right?

LIBBY: Right! I am grateful to the many people who helped me make this book happen. I was lucky that a good friend, the poet Jeanne Svensson, served as my editor as I’ve worked on the book. In the very beginning of my dream to collect the poems into a book, she chose which poems to include and even helped to shape their order. Other friends have read and critiqued the poems.

I learned a great deal from Vermont poet David Weinstock, the leader of my weekly poetry group, and from studying with another Vermont poet, Rebecca Starks. With her, I have explored poetic forms—the sonnet, the villanelle, haiku and haibun, a beautiful Arabic form, the ghazal, and others.

GROG: Thank you for sharing these insights, Libby. I'm so excited that your book is on its way, and can't wait to hold a copy in my hand!

***

And here's more from Libby about her colorful life -- including that she once interviewed TS Eliot (!!) and has a passion for the indigenous textiles of the Andes:

I began my avid years of writing at Wheaton College in Massachusetts, studying with the poet Gray Burr. Since then I have studied writing at Radcliffe Seminars, the University of Vermont and recently in weekly intensive poetry seminars with Vermont poet Rebecca Starks.

Soon after college, I won a national writing award from Mademoiselle Magazine which led to an interview with T.S. Eliot. (GROG: !!!)

I received a Barbara Carlin grant from SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) for a picture book text, and won a poetry prize from Writers’ Digest.

My poetry has appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Orchards Poetry Journal, Quartet, Blueline Literary Review, and elsewhere. I published a book of short stories for children, Beyond the Stones of Machu Picchu, in 2013 (Thrums Books, Colorado). The stories offer a close-up look at Inca families today and their powerful ways of celebrating the natural world.

I have also followed my interests as an educator and a fiber artist, traveling to Peru eight times to research and write about indigenous Andean textiles and their meanings. My husband and I helped a Peruvian Inca weaver to found the Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco. I co-taught courses on Inca history and culture at the University of Vermont, and guest-curated the exhibition, “Weaving the Patterns of the Land” at the Robert Hull Fleming Museum.

Currently, I am focused on poetry, my long-term love.

***

Visit Libby's beautiful website to read some of her poetry. 

You can also peruse the entire Summer 2024 issue of The Orchards Poetry Journal, here.   

Why not try a poetic form today? See this post for some ideas. And leave a comment about your own poetry practices.

Happy Poetry Month to one and all!