Virtual ROAR Story Slam 2021

Apr 30

Written By

Friday, April 30th, 2021 | 7PM – 8:30PM EST
YouTube Livestreamed

Welcome to our first virtual ROAR Story Slam – an annual live storytelling competition hosted by KoreanAmericanStory.org. Six finalists, who have been specially selected from our submission pool, will perform their unique, creative, and authentic Korean American story for a chance to win a cash prize of up to $1,000. Finalists will also receive free LG wireless headphones and lights to use at the live event courtesy of our sponsors Paul Kim & Lucy Lee and LG Electronics. Each finalist will have no more than six minutes to tell their story, without the use of scripts nor props. The winners will be determined by audience vote, which will be revealed at the end of the event. Our goals are to encourage Korean Americans to recognize the significance and range of our community’s narratives, to document and preserve them and to showcase them for the community and the public beyond.

Special thanks to our submissions panel of judges: Abraham Kim from CKA, Paul Kim and Lucy Lee our sponsors, Diana Son and Grace Lee our board members. Thank you to our storytelling coach, Sheila Traister, who provided professional coaching sessions to all of our finalists.

Prizes:

1st Place: $1,000 | 2nd Place: $500 | 3rd Place: $250

Ticket Info:

General Admission: Free!

Please reserve a free ticket to access the private livestream!

Get Tickets Here

Emcee & Special Guest

Vivian Lee
Emcee

An Emmy-winning anchor and reporter, joined NY1 in 2008. Vivian’s career in New York started at WNBC in 2002, where she was a general assignment reporter for six years. She was born in Toronto after her parents emigrated from Seoul. She graduated with honors from Carleton University’s prestigious Journalism program in Ottawa. She now lives in New York City with her husband and 2 daughters.

Run River North
Special Guest

Did you know we tried to change our name? Back to Monsters Calling Home, back to recording everything ourselves, back to selling our songs on blank CDs in homemade paper sleeves. Eventually though, we moved forward. We still record songs ourselves, yet there’s more story up the river and we have a lot of folks help bring us to where we are now. These folks include producers Joe Chiccarelli (Morrissey, Broken Social Scene) and Miro Mackie (Mallrat, Cold War Kids, St. Vincent) to Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio, Hannah and Christian of Grouplove, Derek Furhmann, SRSLY, Nick Anderson of The Wrecks, Chris Chu of Pop Etc, Vinyl Pinups. Over the last two year, we went back to the future with Monsters Calling Home: Vol. 1, 2 & 3. And now here in 2020, Run River North is an independent band with an independent sound with a new record coming this fall. Oh and we kept the same artist who did the homemade paper sleeves. Annie you are okay, cool.

Finalists

Paul Kim

Paul Kim is currently based in Spanish Fork, UT, living and working at the Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple there. His favorite pastimes at the temple include playing the harmonium, reading about Vedic philosophy, and arguing with the head male llama Kapiel during llama training. He received his B.A. in Political Science from Brown University. You can find his Youtube channel with unmistakably niche content here.

Jaximus Park

Jaximus Hyun Park (he/him pronouns) currently lives in Seattle, Washington, but was originally born and raised in San Jose, California. He is currently a senior at Seattle University with a BA in psychology, and minors in Asian Studies and Japanese. In the fall, he will be attending San Jose State to obtain his Master’s degree in library science to become a public librarian. Jaximus enjoys making art in its various mediums, from prose and poetry to traditional art and film photography, and using those mediums in order to process his emotions and experiences as a trans queer Korean-American. He especially enjoy spoken word, because it’s the spoken version of prose, which is one of his favorite mediums. Something about being able to thoughtfully and precisely pick specific words to piece together a picture makes it perfect for him personally. @jaximustgofast @jaximustar

Riss Myung

Riss Myung, a Korean Indonesian young woman, would be a word bender if she lived in the world of Avatar the Last Airbender. Influenced by multigenerational sisterhood, she shapes syllables and words to tell stories drawn from her individual to societal systematic experiences. A transnational anti-imperialist feminists, she finds her writings rooted not just in her past, but also the history of women who resisted and rose before her. Riss hopes that her words will continue to pave the way for future generations to walk across. Instagram and Twitter: @risspeaks

Cheryn Simpson

Cheryn Jin-Hee Simpson (she/her/hers) is a scientist, singer, and songwriter. As a scientist, she has established labs and contributed to research on the microbiome and personalized cancer treatment. She is currently developing a vaccine for lung cancer. When not in the lab, she enjoys reading, singing and writing her own music, and trying to propagate pretty much any plant she can get her hands on. Born to a Korean mother and American father, she grew up somewhere in between both cultures. Raised in Plymouth, Massachusetts, she currently lives with her husband, Neal, in Seattle, Washington after having relocated just before the pandemic. She is simultaneously thrilled and terrified to share her story and hopes that her words might make someone feel a little less alone.

e is an attorney with a disability affecting her speech and mobility, but not her spirit. She opened Disability Law Collective, an affordable law practice providing legal advocacy for the everyday legal needs of people with disabilities and their families. She also started a non-profit housing cooperative for people with and without disabilities, called Able Community.

Linda Beck

Linda Beck is an optometrist turned stay-at-home mom who unschools her 8 yr old son much to the disbelief of all her high-achieving Asian-American friends. An aspiring writer, Linda is currently working on the first draft of her novel which highlights the negative effects of high-stakes testing and ultra-competitive college admissions. Ultimately, she hopes to write a second novel that would be based on her family during the Korean War. She loves to read and would rather have a library card over a credit card any day.