- Welcome to Crosscut.

Now, the show that takes you beyond the breaking news goes deeper into the issues you care about and brings awareness to stories affecting communities.

In today's episode, we're wrapping up our final fall art segment with the Seattle author, whose new novel follows one family through pivotal moments in Korean history.

We also look at a new podcast that centers the challenges facing foster youth like homelessness, and is a new Washington pilot program.

The solution plus the growing fear and pain concerning the local and global Jewish and Muslim communities.

Find out how those in the Puget Sound area are reacting to this humanitarian crisis.

I'm Paris Jackson.

In today's episode, we're wrapping up our fall art series and learning how a Seattle author drew from her Korean history and her own ancestry to craft her debut novel Debuting.

Soon a Seattle author's first novel, our Crosscut arts correspondent, talks with the writer to learn how she created her expansive story.

This is our final fall arts installment.

To wrap up the series, we meet author E.J.

Koh, best known as a poet, and Memoirist Koh has written a new novel, the Liberators, which drops the first week of November.

The book is Koh describes as a story about a Korean family across generations in continents dealing with political conflicts, immigration, love, and loss.

Koh says the story is partly based on her own family history.

One recurring theme in the novel is the Idea of borders, both real and imagined from the demilitarized zone that divides North and South Korea to the line between humans and animals, to the way family members choose different rooms in a home.

The book is Full of Borders with her writing Koh probes, what happens when Such Borders are crossed?

Crosscut Arts correspondent Brangien Davis chats with Seattle author E.J.

Koh at Art X Contemporary Gallery in Seattle's Pioneer Square.

Diving into the layer themes of her new novel, - I invited writer ej co to meet me at Artex Contemporary, a local gallery showing bird etchings by Korean artist Gilchun Koh His work is based in the political history of Jeju Island, which also plays a role in E.J.

's new novel, the Liberators.

- Hi, E.J.

- Hi.

Hi.

Nice to meet you.

So nice to meet you.

Welcome to the gallery.

Thanks for meeting me here.

Thank you for having me here.

I so appreciate it.

Now, are you familiar with Gilchun's work?

No.

I've read a lot about GilChun, but I've never really seen it for myself.

- Coming out on November 7th, the Liberators is an expansive novel based in part on E.J.

's own family history.

- It really is a multi-generational novel that follows a family, but also across different countries and different events across history.

By an early age, I could read and write in six languages.

I found a tool, an ink brush, a twig, or my stub finger, and used it to draw a character on parchment dirt or air.

When one line touched another, my heart reached my fingertips to impart meaning.

Tell me about the significance of writing without an implement.

It's sort of, I think, is a way to, to love and understand the Korean language.

For me, I'm feeling how Korean would sound like, and those, those moments were really important for me in trying to bring the reader into that world of understanding this relationship to language.

At five, it was for pleasure that I left words all over town on a tree.

I carved tree in the river.

I spelled river in pebbles on my mother's dress.

I inked dress.

At some point, my mother sent me down and didn't pick me up again.

On my mother's grave, I wrote grave, and this piece here I was curious about because I remembered a red heron in in your novel.

Yes.

Yeah, right.

The the Heron was at the demilitarized zone, and it's just really interesting because that zone is a place of such wounding and pain, and so militarized one of the most militarized borders in the world, but it's also so vibrant with herons and wildlife and the trees and meadows and lakes because there's, there's no one going there.

There's something about borders that happens throughout the novel, whether it's a border between countries, a border that you put up within a country, the borders between these nations or also communities, and also between individuals and also the borders we have within ourselves.

And I thought that was an interesting way to understand history across the lives of these characters.

What are you hoping readers take out of the story?

I think the, the novel deals with such extremes with such terrible, horrific events, and at the same time, it takes really bold steps toward what does an apology look like?

What does forgiveness look like?

What does reconciliation look like in the wake of reckoning with all these things that happened to you or your family?

And I, I think that even to the very end, we try to have a glimpse of what that future looks like, and I hope that there is a sense of hope for the reader who walks away from this and understanding that not to cut, divide, or erase from these difficult dark paths, but to take them on, to look at them deeply and closely as a reflection of ourselves, as a reflection of humanity being a braid of both destruction and reparation.

And that that's something we need to see on both sides being the liberators, the perspective of of not just the liberators but the perpetrators, not just the prison guards, but the prisoners, and to see the whole picture of ourselves and to decide and choose every moment going forward how we would like that to be.

- Thank you.

Brangien.

EJ Koh's novel, the Liberators will release on November 7th.

Read more about it on crosscut.com.

A foster youth advocate is now working to create a solution to help youth who age out of state systems.

We explore how a new podcast is following the ups and downs of this Washington pilot program.

According to a Washington state study, about 10% of youth exiting foster care are homeless after three months.

And a new podcast follows how pilot programs launched in the past year may help youth transition out of state care.

The Youth Today Podcast is presented by a nonprofit of the same name and independent news site, along with Crosscut, the three-part series, podcast, and articles.

Look at how state funding is being spent to address youth homelessness.

The first episode examines Daniel Lugo, who was in foster care and nearly aged out, and his current mission is to create a safety net for other young people leaving foster care or juvenile justice systems.

Lugo.

While working with the Washington State legislature created a $750,000 pilot program called Lifeline Washington.

A resource youth can utilize for financial help as well as connect with services and funding for housing, food, and employment.

The pilot is facing a number of challenges with the contractor overseeing it as the war rages between Israel and Hamas.

Jewish and Muslim communities are growing fearful of hate crimes.

We'll explain what security measures are being taken locally.

There's a growing fear among Muslims and Jews in the Seattle area that increase Islamophobia and antisemitism could lead to violent hate crimes as the war rages between Israel and Hamas, and disagreements over the ongoing conflict permeate the globe.

The Council on American Islamic Relations, Washington Chapter spokeswoman says it's very important to emphasize that all reasonable people want the violence to stop and that every human life has value.

Whether Palestinian or Israeli law enforcement agencies are aware of those concerns and say they are prepared to respond to ensure the safety and security for Jewish and Muslim communities as individuals exercise their first Amendment rights during demonstrations in rallies.

Security concerns among Jewish residents in the Puget Sound and throughout the US remain high.

FBI hate crime.

Statistics show attacks against both groups are among the most common.

The Jewish community says it's increasing security around its synagogues and other buildings.

I'm Paris Jackson.

Thank you for watching Crosscut.

Now, your destination for nonprofit Northwest News.

Go to crosscut.com for more.