What is the title of your latest release?
SUBLIMATION
What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
SUBLIMATION is set in a universe where crossing a border splits you in two. One person goes on to the new country, the other stays behind. If the two instances of the original person ever meet and physically touch, they merge back into one person with both sets of money. The story starts with Rose Soyoung Kang, returning to Korea from NYC for her grandfather’s funeral, where her other self is waiting. Her other self would love to reintegrate. Rose very much doesn’t want to. Things spiral from there.
How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
SUBLIMATION is mostly set between NYC and Seoul, because my family is more-or-less from Seoul, originally, and I spent a decent chunk of my adult life in New York. Seoul’s the biggest city in Korea by a wide margin, and it’s also somewhere that I know decently well, and I’m New York based now. And New York is just a good city to set a diaspora novel in – it’s a huge melting pot with a lot of brownian motion.
Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
Both Rose and YJ (YJ is a secret second protagonist whose POV we get a little later in the book) are people I’d probably see at a party and have a couple of interesting conversations with, but I would find Rose too distant to befriend. YJ I’d probably go on one or two dates before thinking he comes with too much sadboy baggage.
What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Rose: Determined, curious, avoidant
YJ: Earnest, well-meaning, burnt-out
What’s something you learned while writing this book?
They will let me publish a novel written two-thirds in the second person. I didn’t know they would let me do that. Who knows what else I can get away with!
Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
Six of one, half dozen of the other. I do some incremental edits as I write, when I need to go back and reread, but the big edits usually wait until the first draft is complete. I actually print the entire manuscript out and then mark the whole thing up with a red pen, old school style, before transferring the changes back to the digital draft.
What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Going to vibey restaurants that are blowing up on social media. Also, I am, unfortunately, a sucker for the occasional $25 cocktail, as long as it’s interesting enough to justify the price tag.
Describe your writing space/office!
I have the same desk that I’ve had since I was fourteen in a corner of my living room, and I do a lot of my writing from there. It’s a really nice white desk that weighs a million pounds and seems like the desk of an Author. Unfortunately, the majority of the desk is taken up by my computer, which is much less writerly. This is technically an ancillary workstation to the office, where all my bookshelves are, and another desk, and a chair that is shaped like an orb that I love to sit in to write.
Who is an author you admire?
Ruth Ozeki. Reading A TALE FOR THE TIME BEING as a teenager really influenced my writing, and I also met her a couple of months ago and she was extremely cool. I want to be her when I grow up, haha.
Is there a book that changed your life?
I don’t know that it changed my life, but reading CATCH-22 in middle school unlocked a door called “good books are allowed to be funny,” which was very formative for my writing style.
Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published)/Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
I was at work, on my way to get a coffee. I was currently being staffed on the worst restructuring deal of all time. It was also almost my birthday. My agent calls me, and I pick up, and then I lose my mind because I’m being offered a book deal, and that is the moment that changes my life forever. OK, there were a lot of other moments that changed my life (and we also went to auction, since there were multiple offers). But that first phone call was pretty up there.
What’s your favorite genre to read?
Science fiction (expected answer), but my second favorite would be “weird history or psychology nonfiction books.” I’ve read probably like five or six books about the opiate crisis. I don’t know why.
What’s your favorite movie?
The first Iron Man movie, which, man, I feel like I should have some weirder or more upmarket tastes (my second favorites would probably be something like Being John Malkovich or The Night is Short, Walk On Girl), but we’re talking about favorite here, and I have a powerful nostalgia for the first Iron Man movie because I saw it in middle school and it taught me about sarcasm (which, yes, Marvel quip syndrome is real, but I was twelve), and knowing about sarcasm was very important to the development of my personality (teenage, snarky, slightly annoying).
What is your favorite season?
Fall! Perfect jacket weather and no allergies.
How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
I have tried every combination of activities for my birthday – big party, small party, no party, karaoke, no karaoke, family dinner, dinner with my partner – and I’ve concluded that not doing anything is depressing, I do want a cake, and I want to see my friends and family because my birthday is a built-in excuse to bother everyone, but the contents of the day can be fairly abstract.
What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
None of the above, but I’ve been playing a lot of Slay the Spire II lately, which is iterating on the perfect deck building game. If you like stuff like that, it’s really one of the best examples of the form.
What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Korean or Japanese, or maybe Sichuan or Italian. Kind of hard to decide.
What do you do when you have free time?
I play tabletop roleplay games online with my friends, I go on little day trips and make weird recipes and explore NYC with my partner, I read books, I play video games, and I make so many inane posts on social media. I’m pretty boring, I do a lot of regular people stuff.
What can readers expect from you next?
If SUBLIMATION is a love letter to diaspora, then my next adult novel is a love letter to being from New Jersey. It’s set in an infinite mall in a parallel dimension, and the only way I can describe it is “Piranesi” meets “The Backrooms.”
SUBLIMATION by Isabel J. Kim
Narrator: Major Curda, Michelle H. Lee
The border cuts you in two.
When you immigrate, you leave a copy of yourself behind, an instance. One person enters their new country; the other stays trapped at home.
Some instances keep in touch, call each other daily, keep their lives and minds in sync in the hopes of reintegrating and resuming a life as one person. Others, like Soyoung Rose Kang, leave home at ten years old and never speak to their other selves again. Rose, in America, never imagined going back to Korea until her grandfather died and her Korean instance called her home for the funeral.
She doesn’t know that Soyoung plans to steal her body and her life.
How far would you go to live the choice you didn’t make?
Thriller Psychological [ Tor Books, On Sale: June 2, 2026, Hardcover / e-Book / audiobook, ISBN: 9781250376794 / eISBN: 9781250376800 ]
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About Isabel J. Kim
Isabel J. Kim lives near New York City in an apartment filled with books and swords. She is the author of numerous short stories and has won the Nebula, Locus, BSFA and the Shirley Jackson Awards. Her work has been translated into multiple languages and reprinted in multiple best of the year anthologies. When she’s not writing, she’s practicing law or podcasting.
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