“I went up. I probably should have prepared a speech … I think I started by saying, ‘I never win anything,’ to express my surprise,” recalled Ed Park, a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the Lewis Center for the Arts.
This spring, Park was named one of five finalists for the 2023 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in fiction for his novel “Same Bed Different Dreams.” The prize is presented annually for exceptional literary works published within the last year. The finalists of the 44th-annual Book Prizes were recognized at a ceremony at the University of Southern California’s Bovard Auditorium.
Each winning author gave a brief acceptance speech. Fiction was last, meaning Park and his family waited all night.
Then, in the final moments of the ceremony, Same Bed Different Dreams was announced.
“To my surprise, I won,” Park said, describing it as a “real thrill.”
A month later, on a fateful Monday in May, Columbia University revealed the Pulitzer Prize in fiction.
“I was preparing for my class, but tuned in [to the Pulitzer ceremony] a bit after 3:00 p.m. Fiction was the last category announced, and to my delight, Same Bed Different Dreams was named as one of the three finalists! … What a thrill!” Park wrote in a blog post on the book review site Goodreads.
Park has brought his literary work and success to the academic sphere, teaching Princeton students the ins and outs of creative writing. He joined Princeton’s creative writing faculty in Fall 2023 following careers in journalism and publishing. His first course at Princeton was a section of CWR 203: Introductory Fiction, that focused on speculative fiction. For the Fall 2024 semester, the course is listed separately as CWR 213: Writing Speculative Fiction.
It seemed fitting that Park heard the announcement while preparing for a class. Since “Same Bed Different Dreams” was published last November, in the middle of the semester, Park was juggling the demands of being an author with his teaching. His experiences as an author, from editorial decisions and book tours, made their way into the classroom.
“What was cool is that we got the inside scoop into how the cover was made, and the different versions of it,” Jessica Wang ’26, who took Park’s class last fall, told the ‘Prince.’ “He brought a bunch [of designs] to class … He showed us the inside process of how they brainstormed the cover, what he was thinking, what the publishers were thinking.”
Wang is a staff writer for the Prospect at the ‘Prince.’
The novel draws on Park’s life-long interest in Korea as a Korean American. It imagines an alternate history of Korea in which the Korean Provisional Government (KPG) — an institution formed in 1919 during Japan’s occupation of Korea and primarily composed of Korean expatriates — continues in secrecy rather than dissolving after WWII. The plot traces the KPG’s goal to reunify North and South Korea and the transition from Korea’s tragic history into a speculative, tech-dominated future.
“Same Bed Different Dreams” contains multiple narratives that are woven together throughout the novel’s 500-plus pages. Park explained that the book’s different sections and writing styles reflect its title. He said he read the expression “same bed, different dreams” in an email from his father over twenty years ago.
“That phrase was so evocative because it’s just four words, and it encapsulates so much. Like no matter how close you are to a person, you don’t know what they’re thinking, right? A family member, spouse, friend — they could have a completely different sense of things,” Park said. “I thought it was really profound and just very elegantly put. So, I always wanted to use it as a title for something.”
The novel explores this idea between both individuals and nations as it follows various members of the Korean diaspora through different moments in Korean history — both imagined and real. It also includes many historical Korean figures, such as Syngman Rhee, South Korea’s first president and a Princeton graduate.
“There’s a [married] couple in the book,” Park said, “But this very couple — you can think of each of them having different ambitions, dreams, aims. Then on the political or geographical level, Korea was always one country, really for hundreds of years. Thousands of years. And now it’s North and South Korea ... Same bed of Korea, but different dreams.”
“[The book] definitely engages with some speculative stuff,” Park added. “There’s a science fiction writer and video games … It was fun to talk about that and teach some great authors from the science fiction world that I read as a student.”
The topics in Park’s course mirror these elements of his novel. During the course, Park assigned writing prompts involving non-existent technology, time loops, and messages from future selves, pushing students to press the boundaries of their writing skills. He also gave students the freedom to write what interested them most.
“Students handed in really interesting work,” Park said. “I’d never taught a speculative fiction workshop before, so everything’s going [to] be interesting at some level. People are coming up with multiverses, dystopian stuff.”
Park’s experience as the former executive editor of Penguin Press and running his own imprint, Little A, at Amazon allowed him to engage with students’ writing from a professional point of view and give them a taste of the publishing world.
Soloman Khan ’26, a student in the class, said he was grateful for Park’s feedback.
“He always entertained every idea that someone had,” Khan explained. “He would always look at someone’s work as if they’d done the absolute best that they could. And so he was critiquing them at their best, even when they weren’t. … It never felt like you ever had anything to be shy about in his class, which I thought was so interesting. It’s the only class at Princeton that has been like that for me.”
Lulu Pettit ’27, another student in the course, shared similar appreciation for Park’s encouragement.
“I just felt very supported,” she said. “I was a first-semester freshman, and it was my first experience with creative writing at a higher education level. So I liked that I felt really supported, and it was a really welcoming environment.”
Pettit is a contributor to the Prospect at the ‘Prince.’
Inspired by Park’s course, several students set out to read Same Bed Different Dreams. In moving through the novel, they noticed parallels with themes they had learned directly from Park.
“It was cool to read because it reminded me of what we talked about in the class … like writing speculative fiction, and playing with structure and the way you tell the story,” Pettit said.
“One of the things that stands out to me just looking at [the book] is the form, like kind of what he taught us in class. Changing form, thinking about ways to think outside the box,” Wang explained. “That’s stuff he did with this book, and this book is insane. It’s long, and it’s complex and has multiple parts.”
The novel begins with the question, “What is history?” The line is repeated several times throughout the book.
“What is history? I was asking myself [that] as I was writing,” Park said. “Now that the book is done, and the book is out, I can reflect a bit more on it. It seems, in a way, that the book itself was kind of my answer to that question. This is what history is meant to be. It has put all these images and scenes in my head, and it’s driven me to see how they connect, to try to make sense of it. And then write a book, using those figures in those scenes. That’s it.”
Park will publish another book next year, a collection of stories titled An Oral History of Atlantis. The stories will range over Park’s entire writing career and include some speculative pieces.
In addition to writing, Park said he is excited to teach more students. “Especially as our world seems to become more virtual or simulated in some ways, [speculative fiction] is a good way to think through those conditions, dilemmas.”
“If a regular, non-speculative workshop was needed, I could do that. But I like this field. I find it very inspiring … Always when students [can] connect to the material, it is great.”
So far, it seems like students have.
“I really looked forward to that class,” Wang said. “I wish I could take it again. I can’t believe that other people are going [to] get to take it next year.”
Lauren Blackburn is a staff Features writer for the ‘Prince.’
Please direct corrections requests to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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