Kansan author Chloe Chun Seim releases realism and supernatural fused novel Churn this fall

Churn and featured novel illustration. // Courtesy Chloe Chun Seim

Kansan author Chloe Chun Seim releases her realism and supernatural fused novel Churn this November. Unique from other novels, short stories intertwine in order to craft Churn’s overall narrative and features additional illustrations created with watercolor, graphite, charcoal, and more. With Churn receiving the 2022 George Garret Fiction Prize, Seim beautifully combines familial conflict with children making connections to their landscape to come into their own. 

Growing up in rural Kansas on a farm, Seim remembers the prairies that helped calm her mind. She peacefully walked through miles of land with the ability to aimlessly stroll or take an opportunity to reset. One of her main characters, Jordan, develops her own spirituality with the land, attempting to make meaning of the traumatic experiences she’s been through despite her anger.  

“I had a very strong, emotional, spiritual connection to the landscape. If I ever needed to think, if I ever just needed to step away from things, I always wandered,” says Seim. “It’s something that I was really connected to from a young age.” 

Contrasting Jordan’s personality, she has a mild-mannered younger brother, Chung. Chung expresses joy more often than his sister, yet he is not one to handle conflict, sinking into himself instead of addressing how he feels. However, even though both siblings face traumatic experiences together, they elicit different trauma responses. As they are pulled underwater in a lake, the siblings return with different abilities. When Jordan becomes angry, she breathes smoke. In comparison, Chung flops like a fish when provoked. 

“They both have opposite reactions that are elemental, but also psychological and behavioral,” says Seim. 

Like Seim and her brother, Jordan has lighter features compared to Chung, resulting in harassment towards only one sibling. With this experience, Seim writes about prejudice in rural Kansas and the courage to remain confident of heritage in a not-so-perfect home. 

“As I got older, I started to realize how much anger I did have. But I always had a really positive experience with my family identity, and it made me feel special,” says Seim. “It was frustrating growing up, knowing that we’re of the same blood, we’re of the same identity, but people are treated so different.”

Despite some opinions of the Kansas landscape appearing as flat countryside, Seim believes there is still beauty in the small, 300-400 people towns and massive land that surrounded her. Out in the quiet with the nearest neighbor living at least half a mile away, there is a curiosity of something else out there besides Jordan and Chung’s family, perhaps another figure speaking to them. 

“[My parents] would start to craft dark stories or dark realities, worrying about people just showing up and worrying about supernatural things happening,” says Seim. “I had a mostly positive relationship [with the land], but it can bring out different things in different people.” 

Seim wrote the first chapter of Churn ten years ago as a stand-alone short story. After becoming more exposed to collective short story novels in graduate school at UMKC, Seim continued crafting more segments for the next nine years. She appreciated the creative freedom of the short story format, allowing her to explore different writing styles and genres in one complete work. 

“I loved seeing how you could have short stories that maybe have a little bit different style than the overall story or a different form,” says Seim. 

As the manuscript came to a finish, Seim added illustrations to her novel to connect the short stories together. When she finished her art history bachelor’s at KU, Seim stopped creating art for several years and wanted to find herself again as an artist. The illustrations also mimic Chung’s journey as an artist as his character progresses in the novel. 

“I was kind of nervous that readers would feel like the chapters or stories were a little too different in style or form,” says Seim. I saw [the illustrations] as something that could help unite the story as a whole.”

Seim has featured work in literary journals including LitMag, Potomac Review, North American Review, and more. Currently, she helps edit the art and literature journal Snarl.

For more information about her writing, writing services, and Churn’s release this fall, check out her website.