Sulla Lee is a writer and a publisher of โDaily Lee Sulla,โ a daily newsletter sending her piece of fresh literary work for paid subscribers. She runs Hey-uhm Publishing Company and is also a creative writing teacher of seven years of experience. Lee calls herself a literary worker in occasions introduced as a writer and a businesswomen selling the books from her company. Her publisher is a means to both print out her works and to bring in a greater share of her labor as literary worker. โI value my identity as a writer more than that as a publisher, but I still love publisher work,โ said Lee. โI enjoy participating in the process of fully materializing my pieces of writing into a physical book.โ
Translated Excerpt to the Interview
You often end your works signing โwith love and courage.โ What does it mean?
Writing and a heart full of love have many things in common. A hard-working writer is a diligent lover, for good writing requires a great level of empathy. Itโs similar to loving your partner. To understand them, you first need to think about what is in their mind and their perspective. Unfortunately, humans are lazy, selfish beings, making love always very difficult. I feel suffocating to be in that selfish state, with a bloated sense of ego. I managed to escape the โme-onlyโ attitude through writing and the love it takes. Iโm sending my works with a heart full of love.
How about courage?
It took me a great deal of courage to start publishing โDaily Lee Sullaโ without any support from sizable media platforms or the Korean literary circle. I was afraid of readers across the screen judging my work. I had to be courageous and take a leap of faith, believing that readers who are complete strangers would appreciate the stories I assembled.
Sometimes I read letters from my subscribers and realize that they also live everyday with a heart full of courage. One of the subscribers is a nurse reading my works inside a restroom stall during pee breaks, and another is an assembly line worker who flares up the smartphone in a corner where surveillance cameras canโt reach. Most of them read the Daily Lee Sulla newsletter before going to bed, comforted that I also work as hard as they do. I feel connected to the readers living passionately, cheered up by their silence encouragement. I bet it took a huge courage for them to pay for writings that are barely finished. To pay them back, I also put in a spoonful of courage into my works.
