by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I’m working on a six novel project that is greatly influenced by what happened to me in Seoul many moons ago. It’s not set in Asia, but I’m using a lot of my experiences from that period in my life to flesh out the universe I’ve come up with.
But, while I have the good / bad old days of ROKon Magazine on the brain at the moment, is there any argument for, say, New York Magazine or The New Yorker to do a history of what happened with the magazine?
Well, yes and no. Let’s list the “noes” first.
It was a long time ago
This is just not a timely subject anymore. It all happened so long ago — an everyone but me got closure — that it just doesn’t make any sense to do any sort of character study on what happened with the magazine. The whole thing would devolve into a very long therapy session with ME.
Who cares?
It was a long time ago. No one cares and it happened in Seoul.
How would you get anyone to talk?
You probably couldn’t get anyone to talk to you, even if you had the good name of a major publication like The New Yorker behind you.
The “Yeses.”
The story is crazy!
What happened with ROKon Magazine — and specifically between me and Annie Shapiro is totally bonkers. Insane. Hard to believe if you know the full story. It’s a real story for the history books of publishing.
Some very colorful characters
There are so many colorful characters that I’m using many of them (in a very Romanized manner) to popular six novels I’m working on at the moment.
Lots of twists and turns — even if the endgame is obvious
Even though it’s obvious that my version of ROKon Magazine was going to fucking fail, the over all arch of the story is very, very interesting. Lots of twists and turns.
Anyway, no one cares. I just needed to get that off my chest.
