Charles Yu is a reformed attorney whose passion for creative writing landed him a job in the writers’ room at HBO’s Westworld. That snowballed into more and more television writing jobs. But after the 2016 Presidential Election, Yu was compelled to begin a more personal writing project, the novel Interior Chinatown, a book written in screenplay format that follows an Asian-American actor with bigger aspirations than the stereotyped bit roles he often landed.
Join Amy Dotson, the Director of the Northwest Film Center, in a conversation with Yu that took place not even 24 hours after he won the National Book Award in Fiction for Interior Chinatown, which will soon be adapted by Yu for a new Hulu series. This interview was conducted virtually during one of the Film Center’s regular Zoom Happy Hours on November 20, 2020.
This program was a partnership with Literary Arts, as part of their 2020 Portland Book Festival.
Featured in this episode
Amy Dotson – Director, Northwest Film Center
Charles Yu – Author & Screenwriter
Mentioned in this episode
- Westworld
- Legion
- Interior Chinatown
- National Book Awards
- Roxane Gay
- How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
- The Heathman Hotel
- Margaret Atwood
- Ursula K. Le Guin
- Courier
- Jay Kirk
- Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
- Alan Ball
- Six Feet Under
- Here and Now
- True Blood
- Jim Gavin
- Middle Men Stories
- The Best of Me by David Sedaris
- Atlanta
- Fleabag
- ARG
- Oregon Film
Produced by Jon Richardson
Music by Mark Orton
