UNMC’s Lydia Kang, M.D., to read from her novels

When Lydia Kang, M.D., steps into an exam room to see a patient, they may wave a book in front of her and ask her to sign it.

Dr. Kang’s usual response is something like, “Well, we need to check on your diabetes first.”

As her third and fourth books near their 2017 release dates, Dr. Kang, an assistant professor of internal medicine at UNMC, has become increasingly comfortable with being a medical professional and an author.

“My patients have been extremely welcoming about it,” she said. “In the work environment, I tend not to bring up the writing, but my patients will bring it up with me.”

Wednesday, Dr. Kang will read selections from her first young adult novel, “Control,” and possibly its sequel, “Catalyst,” at 3:30 p.m. at the McGoogan Library of Medicine.

Her newest young-adult novel, “The November Girl” is coming out in the fall of 2017, and her first adult book will be co-written non-fiction work called “Quackery.”

“It’s kind of a history of medicine book with a touch of humor in it,” she said. “The subtitle is ‘A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything.'”

When Dr. Kang first got involved in UNMC’s Seven Doctors Project — an initiative to help medical professionals explore creative writing — she wanted to write poetry, and perhaps such medical memoir essays.

“I hadn’t really written very much fiction at all when I joined,” she said.
That changed after her first year with the program, and she actually wrote two novels — an urban fantasy and a historical novel — before “Control,” a young-adult science-fiction adventure, was published. Its sequel, “Catalyst,” followed.

For her new works, though, Dr. Kang has moved away from science-fiction.

“The November Girl” is a contemporary/magic realism story set on an island in Lake Superior.

“I think it will be a little bit of a surprise for readers, because the voice is very different, the subject matter is very different,” she said.

Dr. Kang is collaborating with journalist Nate Peterson on the “Quackery” book — he reached out to her for her medical expertise.

“Everything that I get really passionate about, a lot of it ends up coming back to some personal experiences that I’ve had or my love of science and medicine,” Dr. Kang said. “So in a weird way they all do sort of knit together — but not necessarily in a way that is obvious to other people.”