life rattle show no. 1252

Presented on THURSDAY, april 18, 2013

Hosted by John Dunford

featuring

"A Woman's Fate"
"I'm Sorry Toto"
and
"Granny's Chicken Stew"

by Grace Jooyun Lee

tonight's Show

Tonight, on Life Rattle Number 1252, we present three stories by new Life Rattle writer Grace Jooyun Lee.

Grace Jooyun Lee was born in Seoul, Korea, on her mother’s twenty-eight birthday in 1983. She was exposed to the world of the performing arts early in life by her mother, a professional dancer. Since then, Grace has dreamed of a career in the performing and creative arts.

At the age of thirteen, she and her family moved to Vancouver, Canada, where she was involved in school and community theatre productions, various dance recitals, madrigal choir and as a flutist in her high school orchestra. Grace had her first conflict with her family when she moved to Toronto to attend university. Her plan to pursue a career in acting was forcefully stopped by her father, a physician. Under her father’s direction, she transferred from the Erindale Theatre program to the biology program. This made her miserable, and she questioned by why people so strongly believe in the stereotype of the poor artist, and that the only stable jobs were in the fields of science.

Grace tried to add some art to her life. After she choreographed a dance for an Italian play performed by the UTM Italian language students in 2005, she withdrew from school and moved back to Seoul. There, she made her living through stage acting and teaching English.

In 2011, Grace Jooyun Lee returned to school, this time taking courses she desired—creative writing and social geography. She hopes to continue her career in acting and writing.

Grace Jooyun Lee’s writing is guileless and candid, her voice frank and authentic. She is unafraid to show herself, laying bare the innocent, sometimes mischievous, and often funny, thoughts and emotions of a little girl’s world. Tonight’s three stories take place in Grace’s home country of Korea, when she is a small child, and reflect her Korean culture.

In "A Woman's Fate," tonight’s first story, our narrator’s slightly older cousin tells her a far-fetched tale about where babies come from, as they sit in a ginseng-infused bath pool and stare at the belly of a very pregnant woman.

In our second story tonight, "I'm Sorry Toto,", our narrator buys four cheap, sick chicks from a man who squats in front of her elementary school, knowing her mother disapproves.

In “Granny’s Chicken Stew,” our final story, Grace’s grandmother permits her to keep her two lady chickens, Koko and Lulu, in her backyard. During a visit, Grace can’t find them and casts a suspicious eye on her mother’s cat, Nabi.