“You don’t believe in love? That’s stupid.” What do you mean stupid?” “Idiotic, dumb, silly. Stupid. Love isn’t romantic. You feel love when you look at your family; when you look at your friends, not just some piece of ass. Romantic love stupid – you can’t say that you haven’t felt it when I hear you talk about your family.” “C’mon, Jem, you know that that isn’t the love I’m talking about. I mean within rel—" Then how would you define love?” Jihun Kim’s goal at the coffee house was to finish his work. Mina Masadopa’s goal, apparently, was to piss him off.
About Year of the Novella program: Over the course of 2018, a select group of young writers was invited to take part in a year-long writing program at the Story Factory. Their goal was to produce not just a fistful of poems, or a story, or a script, but a fully realised novella. The volunteers working with our budding novelists were there not so much as tutors but as mentors and peers, offering help and support while writing a novella of their own. This is one of the novellas produced in these workshops.