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Co-host of @whyreadya. ESL Teacher. Immigrant Advocate. Writer rep’d by @tnicolepayne of @GoldenWheatLit. Tattooed mother. Bookworm. #resist
Now, on the one hand, I don’t mind that because I don’t JUST write to get paid, I write because I love to write I didn’t write a new poem at all I don’t think. I worked on my novel with my agent to get it ready for submission, and then I worked a little on a new novel, but mostly I didn’t write much. So I began to think about what I WOULD like to write about and what I am capable of writing about, and I came up with three things: Books, Education, and Writing.
It’s hard to keep up your dream of being a YA author when things don’t all fall into place like you want, when every rejection makes you wonder if you’re just not good enough after all. It’s hard, unseen work, and it’s this constant tug-of-war between I need to do more of it I couldn’t handle the kids and I couldn’t change the punitive environment already set at the school and I couldn’t teach math. I’ve never taught private school before, and it’s been a very long time since I’ve taught native English speakers.
After A Wrinkle in Time came out last spring, I re-read the Time series and lately I’ve been re-reading the Vicky Austin series again. In a way, I feel like Ashes is my love letter to Thailand, but it’s also its own story, and the main character, Jasmine, is not me. Jasmine, a 16 yo mixed Thai/American girl moves from her hometown of Washington, D. C. to her mom’s hometown of Bangkok, Thailand, after Jasmine causes an accident that leaves a classmate paralyzed and in a wheelchair. I’m still very overwhelmed about writing this book, but thinking about my grandmother gives me a new passion for writing Sarah’s story.
After two rounds of NaNoWriMo, a novel writing workshop class, several beta readers, and multiple revisions over three years, I finally completed ASHES. This novel is about a mixed Thai/American teen and is sort of my own way of honoring Thailand and processing my own experiences of growing up as a third-culture kid and wrestling with faith. I don’t want to say too much, but after a tragic accident, Jasmine and her family move from the US to her mother’s home country of Thailand, and Jasmine has to wrestle with a strange culture, a new school, a language she doesn’t speak that well, and a secret she carries from her life in the States. In addition, my friend, daughter, and I have started a podcast called Why Read YA.