Interview With Author Julie Pham
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I am an author, speaker, researcher, and curiosity connoisseur. I’m also a dinner party enthusiast! I was born in Saigon, Vietnam and raised in Seattle, Washington. I have a PhD in history that I earned from Cambridge University as a Gates Cambrige Scholar. In my career, I’ve worked as a journalist, historian, marketer, nonprofit executive, community organizer and management consultant. In my 15+ years of leadership experience, I’ve used my original research to bring together people from all walks of life to help them build trust and work collaboratively with one another. I believe that trust and collaboration can be built between diverse individuals and communities through exercising our innate power of curiosity and through a mutual understanding of the flexibility of respect. I currently live in Seattle, Washington and head my own company CuriosityBased, to foster curiosity in the world.
I have published two books. The first book I wrote is Their War: The Perspectives of the South Vietnamese Military in the Words of Veteran-Émigrés, where I engaged in original research and interviews with 40 RVNAF veterans to recover some of the South Vietnamese military perspective of the Vietnam War for an American audience. An analysis of the interviews shows the veterans’ own explanations for the Vietnam War that complicate and sometimes even challenge the widely held assumptions about the South Vietnamese military. Their War was published in 2019.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My latest book is 7 Forms of Respect: A guide to transforming your communication and relationships at work. I was inspired to write this book by the polarizing, yet diversifying communities that we live in. Today, people often feel that there’s a “right” and “wrong” answer for what is considered respectful. This leads to a lot of miscommunication and misunderstandings between people, especially at work where we spend most of our waking hours. Through my work, I have led cross-sector collaborations between people of diverse backgrounds and observed this occurring first-hand. I don’t actually believe that there’s any single truth for “right” and “wrong” when it comes to respect. By writing this book, I hope to help others practice communication and curiosity with one another to reduce misunderstandings and build trusting relationships. This book is also based on my original research into workplace respect.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I invite a lot of people into my writing process. I write in Google docs and I have a pool of people who have agreed to be beta readers and editors. When I was writing my most recent book, I dedicated the weekends to revising. So it looks like me sending out a new draft on Sunday nights or Monday mornings to about 3 to 5 readers, asking them to send in the comments by Saturday mornings. On Saturday mornings, I would turn off my phone and read their comments and just start revising and writing these sections. Then on Mondays, it would start again. I also like to hand write my manuscript. In the past I would dictate and then type write. Nowadays I use a Remarkable 2.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
While I read a lot of nonfiction leadership and social commentary books, I love reading novels. It helps me understand different perspectives. I’m a big fan of Hanya Yanagihara, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Douglas Stuart, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I read nonfiction books based on people’s experiences, like Stacey Abram’s Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change. I even wrote a book review about it. You can read that here: https://curiositybased.com/stacey-abrams-leadership-manual-is-for-all-leaders/.
At my company CuriosityBased, I promote leadership books written by women, people of color, LGBTQ+, and those who have disabilities. My company even researches book lists. I believe that we can enrich how we lead by expanding who we read.
What are you working on now?
I’m busy promoting my new book, and I continue to write short social commentary essays. Right now I’m focused on helping people understand the 7 Forms of Respect framework in different mediums, such as a digital course and live workshops.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I promote my books through all mediums, including social media (LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter), podcast guest appearances, website and newsletter posts, and public book talks.
Examples:
Book Talks – https://youtu.be/7LMzuFtgBMs
Podcasts – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=755dffMtohA
You can find more here: linktr.ee/curiositybased
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Recruit people who are willing to be beta readers and editors and create a schedule of when you need to provide them with drafts! This way, you can rely on a small group of people to read each draft and provide feedback before you revise.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Someone gave me this analogy of being a thermostat: There will always be people who say they are too hot, and then others who say they’re too cold, and we can’t go up and down with what other people want. We have to know our core temperature.
That is so important. I get a lot of feedback from others to do this or do that. Sometimes I take the feedback, sometimes I don’t. I have to see if it makes sense for me.
What are you reading now?
I just finished reading Ron Chew’s, My Unforgotten Seattle, a memoir of a third-generation Chinese-American growing up in the International District of Seattle. This is where I currently live, and it is wonderful to see and learn about this neighborhood through this community leader’s eyes.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I have plans to write a personal version of the 7 Forms of Respect, but that will be in a couple of years. My team and I have to do the research first.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
So hard!! For now, Betty Smith’s A tree grows in Brooklyn, Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life, Thi Bui’s The Best We Can Do, and Sanjeev Sahota’s The Year of the Runaways
Author Websites and Profiles
Julie Pham’s Social Media Links