To my wonderful readers on Wattpad,

Before I get into things, I first want to express how deeply grateful I am to each and every one of you. When I first joined Wattpad back in 2014, I felt alone socially. I was at a point where I felt alienated from friends and my school's social network. You all welcomed me with open arms and provided me a place that felt like home. My teen years were pivotal to the development of my self confidence and an understanding of who I was at the core; all of you at Wattpad helped shape that for me. Over the years, I have been honored to have you all by my side, to have your love and support, and to have had you all watch me evolve, grow, and move through life. It has been such a privilege to share my stories and my life, to have met so many wonderful souls, and to have seen how beautiful it is to have people love my characters of color as much as I do. Writing with a focus on Korean-American characters felt like an insurmountable leap on Wattpad when I began to explore my own identity, but you all welcomed this, supported me, and provided myself and my characters with more love than ever before. I am endlessly, endlessly grateful for that.

With that being said, I have always strived to be open and honest with all of you, and I don't want this time around to be any different. For the past few years, I have struggled largely with feeling at home on Wattpad. As time progressed, I became tired of the uphill battle myself and so many other Black, Indigenous, and other Creators of color face. The constant marginalization of ourselves and our work in lieu of our white peers has never been easy, but it became more and more frustrating to watch our voices drowned out by Wattpad's push for what was comfortable. Ultimately, the final straw was witnessing as, even after all of the feedback, and labor, and time, again and again our voices were overlooked for white authors trying to tell our stories. In 2020, I had hoped that we wouldn't still be having these conversations, trying to make our Own Voices and our own stories be heard, seen, valued.

Earlier this year, I had discussions with Wattpad about how they might operate as a site in order to provide better community, opportunity, and visibility to BIPOC. Myself and many other Stars who are BIPOC spent hours across days supplying the site with ideas, insight, and emotional labor for free. In return, we have found ourselves in a similar predicament once more. As many of you have seen on Twitter, the conversation around representation, white fragility, and the toxicity of much of the white writing community has arisen once more. Through conversations between other creators, I only found myself more and more alienated, and more and more tired. Over and over, I feel like creators of color find themselves in emotionally and mentally draining situations, where we are promised solutions, only to be faced with the same issues in a different form soon after, no solutions.

The final straw comes today. Today I resigned from the Wattpad Stars program, as I no longer felt seen, heard, or valued as a POC, not just a writer with a platform. Myself and quite a few other Stars of color made this incredibly tough decision over the weekend. Our resignations were accepted with only an apology. It was my hope that while I had no more interest in being part of a program that further alienated me on the basis of my identity, that Wattpad as a company could find within itself the strength and the resource to offer solutions and alternatives, and to ultimately fight for its Stars of color before having to see us go. Instead, Wattpad went with the simplest solution: to let us leave. To be transparent, I have been informed I am allowed to return to the program if ever I want to, but how could I want to when no solutions were concretely offered, and when it seemed as though Wattpad found it easier to let myself and other Stars of color leave rather than sit down and have the hard conversations, put in the work to keep us, and remind us that we are, in fact, valued.

All of this has weighed on me for months now. I have been uncertain on this decision because I love Wattpad. At one point in my life, it was my home away from home. The success I have built on the platform has been hard earned, and all the hours of love and labor I have put into my work are hard to just throw away. But after today, I feel I can no longer remain on a site where I do not feel valued by the company. I do not want to provide them with my traffic, my craft, or myself, when it has been proven time and time again that they cannot and will not show up for myself or my BIPOC peers in the ways that matter most.

Today, I am leaving Wattpad. I am not sure where I will go from here. All I do know is I want to continue to share my works with you. You, after all, are half the point of the story. For now, I think I will begin to shift my works to Radish. I also hope to find a way to share my stories for free. I will keep you all updated on my decisions moving forward. Until then, one more time I would like to express how grateful I am to you all. You made my writing dream become a reality, and every day continue to help push me toward new goals. Thank you for valuing my stories, my characters, and above all, my voice. I love you all dearly and I hope more than anything I can continue to reach people with my words.

With all my love,

Respectfully,

Em