Professor Hudson’s Creative Writing Courses "After teaching alongside Professor Hudson for the last several years at Princeton, I know that he will insure UIC students receive some of the finest creative writing instruction available anywhere in the world." -Chang-Rae Lee, Author of Native Speaker and Professor at Princeton University Gabe Hudson is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Yonsei University’s Underwood International College (UIC). His first book of fiction, Dear Mr. President, about the post-Gulf War syndrome, has been translated into seven languages, including French, German, and Japanese. Professor Hudson was a 2003 PEN/Hemingway Award Finalist, and received the 2003 Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the 2006-2007 Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Village Voice, McSweeney’s, Black Book, Granta, The International Herald Tribune, and The New York Times Magazine. Professor Hudson was a contributing writer to HBO’s Six Feet Under: Better Living Through Death. He earned an M.F.A. from Brown University in 2000, where the novelist Robert Coover awarded him the top graduate creative writing prize, the John Hawkes Prize in Fiction. In 2007, he was selected as one of the "Twenty Best Young American Novelists" by Granta Magazine. Professor Hudson taught at Princeton University from 2004-2007, and is an Editor-at-Large for the renowned McSweeney’s publishing house. When Yonsei University invited Professor Hudson to join its full time faculty, he was strongly recommended by his colleagues at Princeton University, especially by Joyce Carol Oates, who has been nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature, and Edmund White, one of the most recognized writers in the U.S. I met him in one of the coffee shops at Jongno. He did not come to school since he does not teach summer school. “Of course, Yonsei University has a beautiful campus. The novelist’s activity is somewhat different from a normal academic track. I do not consider myself a traditional scholar. I am an artist. Writers generally do not spend much time in a university office. I usually write my works in cafes. Many authors in Europe and America do their works in cafés.” I told him that the creative writing track is unfamiliar to most Yonsei Students. I asked him if Creative Writing is really necessary for college curriculum. He replied, "At most Ivy League universities, the Creative Writing Programs are one of their most famous and popular programs. People may say that creative writing does not have systematic theories as other majors do, but I think most systematic theories are provincial, a sort of elementary way of addressing lives. It’s not a sophisticated way of thinking.” "I do not consider myself a traditional scholar. I am an artist." “Why not invent your own system of thought that continuously devours itself and regenerates itself in a new form? Following the same pattern as those who came before you does not bring about fruitful results. One aim of the creative writing curriculum is for students to generate new ideas and thoughts with which people can enrich their lives." Professor Hudson says Professor Yoon Hye-Joon in the English Language and Literature Department had the original idea of bringing creative writing to the Underwood International College. Professor Hudson also has a strong friendship with Chang Rae Lee, who is the famous Korean-American writer of the novel, Native Speaker, and a professor at Princeton University. "I did not know much about Korea before coming to Seoul,” he said. “I spent some time in Thailand and Vietnam before but not in Seoul. But Chang Rae Lee used to cook Korean Food for me sometimes." He revealed his admiration for Seoul, which had become dear to his heart. "I love Seoul’s energy, people, and food. Seoul is a very dynamic city. I am satisfied with my life here." I asked him to compare his Yonsei students with his Princeton University. "I basically teach the same thing at Yonsei as I did at Princeton, but UIC has more cultural diversity. I am often the only Westerner in my class here. Students in UIC have extensive foreign experiences and speak several languages. Nevertheless, the fiction they write often takes place in Korea.” A strong emphasis on the implicit power of language “We have 10-12 students in each class. Students write short stories, a chapter of a novel, etc. Each week, two or three students write and send their stories to their classmates four days ahead of the class meeting. Authors read their writings standing in front of the class. The rest of the students critique the original writing of their classmate. The author listens to the constructive criticism of their classmates. During the critique process, students unpack the entire story and put the pieces of the narrative out on the table, in the same way a mechanic would take an engine apart. The whole class critiques the writing both at the micro and macro level. At the micro level, details such as words, sentences and paragraphs are carefully examined. The macro level deals with narrative structure, character, the big picture components of storytelling. The class actively discusses how the author might make the story more effective.” Professor Hudson puts strong emphasis on the implicit power of language. "Our lives are made up of narratives, aren’t they? I hope my students become fearless in dealing with texts and language after taking my class. In class, I train students with various language concepts and techniques. Students are being taught concepts like primordial words, swerve, torque, etc. To give you a simple example, primordial words are the very foundation of human existence. In the beginning of the world, humans had no words to describe their world. They have no word even for ‘mouth’. They started naming objects, and these names became the very foundation of life. Primordial words are, for example, words like sky, sun, blood, etc. Without these words, humans, regardless of their nationality, simply couldn’t function. These words are completely different from a word like ‘Cell Phone’." "I love Seoul’s energy, people, and food. Seoul is a very dynamic city." Professor Hudson is the author of the story collection Dear Mr. President. He actually served as a rifleman in the Marine Corps reserve during the 1st Gulf War period. "This is the first novel referring to the post-Gulf War issues. I did not engage in battle but I trained with soldiers who fought in the war. After the war, they had difficulty integrating back into civilian society. Sixty –five percent of babies from these soldiers were born with birth defects. When this book was published in 2002, no one knew what really happened in the Persian Gulf War. People in my generation had inherited all the war myths from our fathers’ generation. We read Vietnam War stories. After being told stories about the Gulf War from my fellow Marines, I decided to write stories on behalf of my generation." Professor Hudson believes that a good story must be truer, in an emotional and psychological sense, than what happened in reality. This is a concept he calls "story truth." His new book is going to come out about at the end of this year. "My new book is about a story bridging the Vietnam War with the Gulf War. A narrator born in a tunnel during the Vietnam War ends up serving as a Marine in the Persian Gulf War. I try to fuse personal identity issues with wars in my novel." I asked if he was fond of writing before joining the Marine Corps. He replied, "Sure. My father started reading great literature to me at the age of four, including Moby Dick and Wallace Stevens poems."