Discipline: Literature – nonfiction

Grace M. Cho

Discipline: Literature – nonfiction
Region: Brooklyn, NY
MacDowell Fellowships: 2024

Grace M. Cho is the author of Tastes Like War (Feminist Press, 2021), a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award in nonfiction and the winner of the 2022 Asian Pacific American Literature Award in adult nonfiction. Her first book, Haunting the Korean Diaspora: Shame, Secrecy, and the Forgotten War (University of Minnesota Press, 2008), received a 2010 book award from the American Sociological Association.

Her writings have appeared in The Nation, Catapult, The New Inquiry, Poem Memoir Story, Contexts, Gastronomica, Feminist Studies, Womens Studies Quarterly, and Qualitative Inquiry.

During her time at MacDowell, Cho researched and drafted the first chapter of her new book, We Will Go to Jinju: A Search for Family and the Hidden History of the Korean War, under contract with Viking. The project is a rewriting of the McCarthy era narrative that claims the Korean War was a righteous war to protect America's freedom. It will combine personal and collective history, archival research, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Korea’s investigations into the widespread use of civilian massacre as a tool of anti-communism.

Studios

Schelling

Grace M. Cho worked in the Schelling studio.

Marian MacDowell funded construction of this studio the year that the organization was established and the first artists arrived for residency. It was called Bark Studio until 1933, when it was renamed in honor of Ernest Schelling, a composer, pianist, and orchestral leader who served as president of what was then called the Edward MacDowell…

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