Soon Wiley Books in Order

Soon Wiley is from Nyack, New York, and he writes fiction that pays close attention to people who feel half inside a place and half outside it. That interest is personal. He has spoken about being biracial, about having a name that often prompted questions, and about learning early that identity is not always something you get to define on your own.

He grew up in an arts-minded household. His father is a painter, his mother an art history professor, and he has said that both home life and school left him aware of what it meant to stand a little apart. He attended a Waldorf school through eighth grade, then later studied at Connecticut College, where he earned a BA in English and philosophy.

Writing was not a straight-line plan. Wiley has said the impulse goes back to high school study hall and a period studying abroad in Germany, but he did not take a creative writing class until his senior year of college. After that he kept going, eventually earning an MFA in creative writing from Wichita State University, where his early fiction often began as short stories that wanted more space than a few pages could hold.

That was one clue that he might be headed for the novel.

Before publishing fiction, Wiley built a working life in classrooms. He has taught high school English and has spoken openly about the tension between a full teaching schedule and the time a book needs. He began When We Fell Apart while teaching in Washington, D.C., getting up before dawn to write at a large desk before the school day started. He also spent time working in Seoul, an experience that gave him a direct feel for the city that anchors his debut.

When We Fell Apart took about seven years to finish. The book follows Min, a biracial Korean American in Seoul, after the death of his girlfriend, Yu-jin, sends him searching for answers. What draws readers in is not just the mystery, but the way Wiley uses suspense to ask harder questions about belonging, family expectations, grief, secrecy, and the distance between the self we show the world and the self we keep hidden.

That mix of inward feeling and outward momentum seems central to what he does best.

Wiley has said he did not set out to fit neatly inside one category, and When We Fell Apart reflects that. It moves like a mystery, but it is also a coming-of-age story and a book about diaspora, love, and the uneasy business of trying to know another person fully. He has described realizing, late in the process, how much the novel was also about home, and about the pressure to belong without disappearing into someone else's idea of you.

Along the way, his writing has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and he has received fellowships in Wyoming and France. He lives in Connecticut with his family and continues to work in education while writing fiction. That practical side matters. In talking about writing, he often comes back to patience, routine, and the simple fact that good work usually takes longer than you hope. It is a grounded view, and it fits the kind of novel he has written.