Catching Up with 2024 Nonfiction Prize Winner Max Pasakorn
October 8, 2024 | blog, interviews, Prizes
Max Pasakorn (he/she/they) is a queer writer of creative nonfiction and poetry. A Sewanee Writers’ Conference and Lambda Literary Retreat alum, Max has roots in Singapore, Thailand and the United States. Max is the author of creative nonfiction chapbook A Study in Our Selves (Neon Hemlock Press). Read Max’s other work in Split Lip Magazine, Foglifter Journal, Witness Magazine, SUSPECT Journal, Eunoia Review, Chestnut Review, Honey Literary, and more. Max is currently working on a diasporic coming-of-age memoir about pop culture in Southeast Asia. Read more about Max at maxpasakorn.works or follow Max on Instagram at @maxpsk_writes.
SP: Do you feel that you have “stuck (your) roots” and are “inseparable” from Singapore now or do you experience ongoing conflict regarding heredity, identity, and attachment to a place?
MP: I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what “home” means to me. In the other two languages I speak, Thai and Mandarin, there is no distinction between “house” and “home”, so I’ve always wondered what it meant for me specifically to be “going home”. Despite having grown up in Singapore, I do feel like I don’t fit in with the rest of the country. Perhaps it is because I’m living in a conservative space as a queer person. Perhaps it’s because of my queerness that I will never truly fit in anywhere, even as I search desperately for that belonging. I hope one day I’ll be able to confidently say I belong somewhere, and that place will be home. For now, my best answer is that home is an in-between space between Thailand, my motherland, and Singapore, where I’ve ended up.
SP: Can we read the ending as an affirmation of self—much more than “a rogue seed” or “an accessory”—and the value and potential of every individual, despite the circumstances of their birth?
MP: Yes, absolutely. Despite the essay’s questions around place-based belonging, what makes this essay compelling is the speaker’s certainty about their selfhood. The speaker doesn’t assert belonging to any specific locality, but I think the speaker does assert that they belong at least as a voice in this essay, a guide for whichever reader has stumbled upon this journey with them. I think that’s why I write – not to complain or argue for my existence, but to demonstrate what life has been and could be. That’s also why I’m drawn to creative nonfiction – it is the specificity of an individual’s life that enchants a reader. The creative nonfiction reader does not expect to see themselves in the writing, but they somehow do. Despite death being this essay’s motivator, it is an essay about life, about how we continue living, about – as you’ve beautifully put it – affirming one’s value and potential.
SP: What’s your writing process like?
MP: So much of my writing process happens circumstantially, as a result of exploration. I begin with something I want to explore – typically a memory or an image, but sometimes an obsession – and set myself time in the day, usually about 30 minutes, to write about it. Then, I think about where the essay could go next, and find more time to keep going. For this essay, I began with my experiences with food, eventually landing on the chili padi as a motif, and started filling in the gaps with personal memories and related research. This essay took about half a month in the winter of 2023 to write, though I’ve written about my mother’s death before multiple times in other essays, like this one about the Thai alphabet. Most of my other work of similar lengths takes a few months, at least.
SP: What’s your revision process like?
MP: Generally, my writing is quite fragmentary. I like writing in short sections with section breaks, and so a lot of my revision begins with rearranging, figuring out which order the fragments should go in. When the order feels correct, then I’d consider merging the sections by writing to fill in the silence between them, expanding some sections and shrinking others. Once the work feels sound in structure and pace, then I’d seek external feedback from trusted peers, who would provide comments on sharpening parts. But I believe I – as the writer of the creative nonfiction work – need to be sure first of what I want the work to be before I share it outwards. The core needs to be stable before it can grow the fruit.
SP: What do you hope readers will gain or understand from your writing?
MP: I write creative nonfiction literally from the other side of the world (there’s a 12-hour time difference between Singapore time and Eastern Standard time) and yet I think my life and my experiences still resonate with readers from the US. I hope this shows that despite us being geographically distant, we’re not really all that different from each other. I am kin with so many others who dream of home, who feel displaced in some way. What we bond over – together, despite being apart – is what makes us human.
SP: Which writers have most influenced your writing?
MP: The three that come to mind immediately are poet Chen Chen, Thai-American writer Ira Sukrungruang, and fellow Singaporean memoirist Shze-Hui Tjoa. Each of their books has taught me different lessons about rendering life and truth on the page, and I would highly recommend reading their works.
SP: What are you currently working on?
MP: I’m working on my debut full-length memoir, which will hopefully include this essay in its pages. The project is a queer coming-of-age memoir about how my encounters with popular culture (such as The Powerpuff Girls and Bird Thongchai in this essay) accompany and influence the formation of identity and selfhood. Opening the book is a chapter on how Thai Boys’ Love TV series, a huge part of Thai popular culture today, has informed my understanding of queer love and queer desire. Hopefully, this book will come to life soon!
Submissions for the swamp pink Nonfiction Prize open on January 1st and will close January 31st.
Submit your work here.
With a $20 entry fee, writers may submit up to 25 pages of nonfiction. Winners receive $2,000 and publication. All entries will be considered for publication, and more than one story may be entered.
Before you submit, please remove your name and any other identifying information from your manuscript. Simultaneous submissions are okay, as long as you contact us should the work be accepted elsewhere.