Joel Kim Booster

I was an avid reader.

And they definitely, like I said, there was not a lot of direct supervision going on while I was home, being homeschooled.

But I worked at the library.

That was my first job.

And that was like a gateway drug to the world, for sure.

And so reading was like a huge part of it, more so than writing.

I think like...

I was not encouraged to write.

I remember I like wrote a story and it was like a modern day Alice in Wonderland reboot.

It was like an early, before reboots were a thing, but I was doing like an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland.

I showed like the first chapter to my mom and she basically was like, you shouldn't be pursuing this.

You're not good enough to do this.

And I was like nine or 10 at the time.

Oof.

So I just remember my mom being like, you really want to focus your time on this?

Because it wasn't very good, I'm sure, at nine or 10.

And so I wasn't really encouraged to do creative stuff growing up.

My parents were very practical things.

I don't want to paint them in too harsh a light.

Like, yes, my mom said that.