On the Town: Kevin Kwan delivers insights at Literary Voices Series

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In his early childhood in Singapore, before moving to Houston with his family, Kevin Kwan wasn’t necessarily a “Crazy Rich Asian” like the ones he writes about in his bestselling book trilogy that begins with his book of that name.

But as he told a crowd in Oklahoma City Thursday night, Kwan has certainly seen or experienced or heard about some of those stories firsthand during parts of his own childhood in Asia: A friend’s inside pond in his living room that had baby sharks instead of fish. Going to another friend’s house and seeing a plane parked in the back by a hangar.

“That’s not normal. But I didn’t realize how not normal it was until I moved to suburban Clear Lake, Texas,” Kwan said. “I had seen very weird things as a child.”

The friendly conversation and dinner where Kwan spoke capped the nearly weeklong Literary Voices Series organized by the Metropolitan Library System’s Library Endowment Trust. Earlier last week, author James Patterson spoke to a crowd at the Hudiburg Center at Rose State College, and author Kwame Alexander spoke at Douglass High School.

Kwan talked about his life as an author with a hit series that turned into a hit movie by the same name, read an excerpt from his upcoming new book “Lies and Weddings” and discussed his writing process and more in an on-stage conversation with moderator Jacqueline Sit at the Oklahoma City Golf and Country Club. Sit is an Oklahoma City public relations professional who is senior account director at Gooden Group.

“I’ve always wanted to know about worlds I know nothing about. And I think the more we do mystify things that we feel are strange or threatening, or different, the more universal it becomes, the more we get to appreciate how we’re all really just on the same boat,” Kwan said. “We just all need to look after each other.”

Proceeds from the event helped create a fund for early childhood literacy in Oklahoma County, which is a joint project with Friends of the Library. This fund will build ongoing support for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library in central Oklahoma through the library system.

The evening also honored longtime library volunteers with the Lee B. Brawner Lifetime Achievement Awards, one to longtime library volunteer Judy Smith and one to the late Lee Bollinger, who had Bollinger’s bookstore.

Sit, who serves as a founding board member for the new Oklahoma City Asian Chamber of Commerce, credits Kwan with inspiring her as she worked with others to form the chamber to represent an Asian population of more than 67,000 people and their businesses in the city.

“Because of you, Kevin, and your hard work and all these different components, we were inspired to build a community here, and a greater sense of belonging we’ve never had before,” Sit said. “And that’s been long overdue, so thank you.”

For information about the series, go to supportmls.org/literaryvoices.

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