Tuesday's Speaker Maija Rhee Devine's Bio:

  Maija Rhee Devine, a Korean-born writer whose fiction, non-fiction, and poetry have appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Boulevard, North American Review, and The Kenyon Review, and in various anthologies, holds a B.A. in English from Sogang University in Seoul and an M.A. in English from St. Louis University.  Writing honors include an NEA grant, finalist in William Faulkner Creative Writing Competition, James Jones First Novel Fellowship, and Emily Dickinson Poetry Award, and nominations for Pushcart Prizes and O. Henry Awards.

"The Voices of Heaven", her novel/love story in a polygamous family and their struggles during the Korean War, flows from her first-hand experience of growing up in Seoul during the war and its aftermath.  The story reveals the realities of both the old and new Korea as the Confucian values that rule the characters still shape the lives of people in North and South Korea. The novel, "The Voices of Heaven", a love story set during the Korean War, (Seoul Selection USA www.seoulselection.com, Irvine, CA, 2013) is available through Amazon.com and Ingram Wholesale Book Club.  The e-book version is now available on Amazon’s Kindle and the Apple iBookStore.

"Long Walks on Short Days", her poetry chapbook about Korea, China, U.S. and other lands she has known, is now available on Amazon.com.

The author and her husband, Michael J. Devine, the former director of the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri, often travel to Korea, where she works on her new project, "Journals of Comfort Women", a book of poems about Korean comfort women who were forced to provide sexual services to Japanese soldiers during WW II.