EPISODE 23: TAP INTO YOUR CHILDHOOD CREATIVITY WITH AUTHOR KAT ZHANG

Sep 24

Kat Zhang has been an avid reader for as long as she can remember. After a childhood spent living in books, she now builds stories for other people to visit.

In addition to her Young Adult trilogy, "The Hybrid Chronicles," she has also published two Middle Grade novels, The Emperor's Riddle and The Memory of Forgotten Things, as well as two picture books, Amy Wu & the Perfect Bao and Amy Wu & the Patchwork Dragon. The third in the series, Amy Wu & the Warm Welcome, will release next year.

Twitter: @KatZhang
Insta: @KatZhangWriter

Takeaways

According to Kat Zhang’s website, she “spent most of her childhood tramping through a world woven from her favorite stories and games. When she and her best friend weren't riding magic horses or talking to trees, they were writing adaptations of plays for their stuffed animals (what would The Wizard of Oz have been like if the Cowardly Lion were replaced by a Loquacious Lamb?). This may or may not explain many of Kat's quirks today.”

By the age of 12, Kat had started her first novel — seven years later, her agent sold her Young Adult trilogy, The Hybrid Chronicles, to HarperCollins. She’s also published two Middle Grade novels with Simon & Schuster. The first, The Emperor's Riddle, is about hidden treasure, lost aunts, and China. The second, The Memory of Forgotten Things, is about grief, solar eclipses, and misfit children.

Transcript

Today, we talked to Kat Zhang she's an award-winning author of young adult and middle-grade books. She wrote Amy Wu and The Perfect Bao as well as Amy Wu and The Patchwork Dragon and her first trilogy, which I believe in her interview, she told me she published when she was between the ages of 16 to 18, was The Hybrid Chronicles, which was published by HarperCollins.

In this episode, we talk about things like where she finds her creative inspiration from how she writes about science fiction, because that is totally a genre that my brain doesn't fully comprehend mostly because I feel like in my formerly perfectionistic tendencies, I've had a hard time reconciling how to have more of that.

Creative freedom. So it's a really fun conversation to have, especially because the reason that I found these books out in the first place was when I picked up a couple of copies of Amy Wu’s books in the library and read them with my daughter.

I also wanted to take a moment to thank people who've made contributions to support the podcast. Thank you, Diane. And thank you, Lorraine. If that's something that you also want to do, you can go to the F*ck Saving Face to make a one-time donation, or you can join on Patreon from what I've heard from the people who reached out to me on Instagram. And via email. There are a lot of questions following up some of these episodes, especially the ones that I publish on Mondays.

So on the Patreon page where you can truly literally ask me anything to follow up on any of the stories that I've shared thus far. I hope that you have a great time listening to this interview with Kat Zhang. I will see you on Friday.

Welcome to the F*ck Saving Face podcast. I'm your host, Judy Tsuei, and together we'll explore mental and emotional health for Asian Americans, especially breaking through any taboo topics. Like may not always be pretty, but it is indeed beautiful. Let's make your story beautiful today. Welcome back to another episode of Fck Saving Face, where we talk about different issues for the modern Asian American human in the world.

And you know, a lot of times we're talking about mental and emotional things. We are exploring things that are taboo, and I'm super excited because I have Kat Zhang here today, and she is the author of an incredible series of books that before we jumped on today, we talked a lot about bringing joy and infusing, you know, the fun into.

The work that we do and the messaging that's out there in the world. So her book, Amy Wu & The Perfect Bao was the first one that my daughter and I read. And so my daughter is now six and it was just so fun because we got to explore kind of this experience that she has with her grandparents, where she's making bow with them.

And then I started diving into your other books too, which I haven't even read to my daughter yet. So I'm saving those. And then we'll be talking a bit about your journey as an author as well, because in general, If you were raised in a traditional Asian American background, that's not quite the path that you're like pushed down to walk.

So I'm going to turn it over to you really quickly and just explain a bit about, you know, your story and who you are as an author. Okay, well, thanks so much for having me today. Yeah. So I'm really happy to be here talking about, you know, Asian American representation in children's literature and in the publishing world in general, books have always been just so near and dear to me, I was that kid who was constantly reading books for my way of experiencing the world and learning more about it and seeing all the things that like, I, I couldn't personally see in my everyday life.

And then I started writing really early. As a way to like process my feelings, to, you know, explore her ideas that I had. And I think I was pretty young, probably like 11 or 12 when I made like a personal goal that I wanted to publish a book one day. Cause I thought it would be the most magical thing to be able to like bring this experience of reading this book to.

To other people, the way that I'd experienced it as a kid. And I think like growing up, I honestly, I don't know that like the stories that I wrote growing up ever had main characters that were Asian, because like, to me, I didn't really see that. And it. It wasn't something that I, well, I noticed that some, there are definitely times I remember being a kid and being like bummed because I would read like a fantasy story or I would be like trying to have a story.

And then of course I would like lie in bed and like, imagine like myself, like in these adventures. And I remember being bummed because like, I just like, I couldn't even imagine myself. I would, I would hit like a roadblock because I would want to be in like, you know, in like medieval England, because that's where all the time travel stories happen.

And then hitting a block where I was like, Oh wait, like I wouldn't belong there. Like I can't fit in this story or imagine myself and like a sorcerer and like, you know, dragon like fantasy. So like the ones I love and then realizing like, wait, like I never see anybody who looks like myself in them. And I remembered that.

But in other ways it was just like really kind of. Just like very, pretty deep, because even when I wrote my own books, I didn't try to put like Asian-American characters. And then I put the characters that I read who are all like, you know, white or assumed to be white. And it wasn't until like later on that I think in with like the wonderful, like discourse it's happening now with like, you know, more representation in kid lit and in publishing in general that I realized like it did make.

Have an impact on me as a kid, more than I even thought at the time, to not be able to see people who had my cultural background or who looked like me in books. And I'm really glad that things are like starting to change. And it's so amazing, like the diversity that kids have now, of course, it's, it's not where we would want it to be or where it could be, but it's definite improvement from when I was a kid.

So I'm always really happy to be a little bit, a little part of that. That change is happening right now. I think that that's so important because as you're describing that, that's exactly what I experienced too, because I also love books, you know? I mean, granted, like my mom was sending us to like the local library that we could walk to by ourselves and then like getting the gold star every time we read, always felt like such a great accomplishment, but it was also, I think, innately in me that I love getting lost in stories.

And you know, my family upbringing was pretty. Challenging and sometimes traumatic. So I think being able to escape in the books, as you said, or to turn to writing, and I didn't even know that that was something that I like to do, but that I didn't identify as being Asian because the only characters that I read about were white.

And so, as you said, like, even when I would try to imagine, I couldn't imagine it or like, You know, putting yourself in that scenario and then realizing that would not have happened or that would not be a fit. So I love that you're contributing to, you know, being able to have younger children be able to see themselves and in a way that it doesn't have to be a super heavy topic because your book, you know, Amy, when the perfect thought the illustrations are wonderful as well.

And it's just really lighthearted way to just kind of see how. A family comes together and how they make a meal or how they make a dish. And then the crux of the story with the little girl, not being able to make the bow the same way that the adults do with all the folds and then being able to kind of find her own unique.

Power as well. And her creative expression is such a wonderful demonstration of what any child goes through, finding themselves, like stuck in the challenges and not being able to do the things that they want. I'm curious, when you turn to writing, as you were growing up, is that something that your family encouraged or nurtured, or how did you find that?

Yeah. So my parents definitely encourage reading from like a really young age. They like wanted me to read like lots of books. I think when I always like getting a little bit older, they wanted me to like, read more like non-fiction like educational and maybe hope that I would be like fewer novels, but they were never like, don't read novels.

There's like maybe also read a sentence. But, yeah, and I just like loved novels. I loved reading. I loved writing. And I think like in the beginning yet, like my parents like encourage it as something that I enjoyed, but they, like, I think it took a lot of effort on my part to be like, this is something really serious that I'm going to pursue.

But I think, I don't know. I think that, like, they were kind of impressed by that too, that I, like, I took this thing as my own like, project that I was able to do by myself. And so, I don't know. I loved it so much that I think I was like very single-minded in like pursuing it no matter what, but yeah, like once, like I think my parents realized like how into it was and how focused I was on doing it.

They were like, definitely encouraging of me, like doing this thing that I love. That's awesome. And can you tell us about the array of books that you've published? Because I think you have, you know, the kids' books and then you have young adults and middle grade. Can you tell us about the different, you know, novels that you've been.

Yeah, of course. So I started off writing young adult books. So like books are like marketed for kids, like 13 through 18. They're like obviously much older people and younger people also read them. And that was like a very natural place for me to start. Cause I actually started writing my first published trilogy when I was, I think like 17.

So I was like right in that age range where like I was writing for basically other people in my age range. And honestly, in the beginning I thought I was. Certain that I would just write like young adult, maybe adult books, but mostly young adult books, like forever. I didn't really have any interest as like a 17 year old or an 18 year old, like a young twenties to be ready for anybody younger than that.

But I don't know, as I got older, I think I actually became more interested. I'm still interested in young writing, young adult books and like maybe when they adult books. But I think being older somehow made me more interested in like going back younger to like my younger years and trying to figure out like how to write a book for that age group.

I, so, like I first after I wrote my young adult trilogy, which is about like a parallel universe where everybody is born with two souls in one body, and then usually by the age of four or five, one of those souls, like. Fades away, but for some people that never happens and they're called hybrids and they're sort of feared and mistrusted by society.

And it's about two girls, Addie and Eva, and how they have to like navigate their place in this, this hostile society and figure out how to live their lives the way they want to. So after that I wrote two middle grade novels. One of it's, the emperor's riddle, which is focused about a little girl's summer trip to China to visit family that her aunt gets kidnapped and she gets like.

Uh, caught up in this like treasure hunt to like find this ancient mean dynasty tracker and also rescue her aunts and the memory of forgotten things, which is about a little girl who unfortunately lost her mother at a very young age to cancer, but then starts having these memories that don't make sense and amaze it of her mother after her mother died.

And she becomes convinced that these memories are from a parallel universe and she wants to find out what they to cross over into that universe. So while I was like writing the middle grade books, I got the idea for Eagle in the perfect bow and it had, I had never. Ever thought about writing a picture book before.

But I had started making bow with my boyfriend and like, he never done it before, but he like really enjoyed eating bow. And so I was like, Oh, like, we should try to make it. And I hadn't tried in years at this point and we did it together and I was like, Oh, I'm still really terrible at it. And yeah, it brought me back to all these childhood memories of making Val with my parents.

And I was like, you know, there needs to be a book about this, but it wouldn't be a book that would, you know, fit for. Like, I didn't want to have a whole novel about making that. I wanted to write like this short story about being a child and having this frustration. And yeah, I like reached out to my agent.

I was like, you know, this is crazy. I've never thought about picture books before, but like here it is. And I was really lucky in that the process was super smooth. My editor, Jen, um, who edited my two middle grade novels was super supportive. And after I saw the books, we got our amazing illustrator Charlene on board who has done so much to like bring Amy and her family to life.

And as he mentioned, like brings these wonderful illustrations to the story and it's been this really amazing process. I love that the grandmother has purple hair. Totally. Charlene's eventually. Oh, I love it. I remember helping my grandmother like dye her hair when I was little growing up with her, you know, using like little dye.

So that was really sweet to see. And I like that in the beginning too, you explain the nuance between, you know, that people often call it, bodes it, but you called it bowel to like simplify. So even having a little bit of that explanation in the dragon book that you, is it the followup. For Amy Lou was the patchwork dragon, or they can be read in either order, but yeah, yeah, that, that one at the very end kind of details, dragons both in the Eastern approach and the Western approach and, you know, growing up in Chinese new year, I remember watching the lions dances and like seeing how remarkable it is having those acrobats beneath the dragons and seeing them move.

So being able to kind of juxtapose those two so beautiful. Can you talk a bit about, you know, The diversity in publishing that we kind of spoke about in the beginning and the goal that you had of making it. So it's like a normalized thing. It doesn't have to be like a, like a big deal. It can just be, you know, normal.

Yeah. I think that was really like focused on and that like, you know, like, like I spoke about before growing up there just wasn't a lot of Asian representation at all in any of the books that I was reading, but there was some, there were, there were books definitely out there that had Asian American protagonists.

But when I read books as a kid, I wanted like escapism. I wanted like joy and happiness and adventures. And I felt like a lot of the books I did touch on Asian-Americans a lot of the times like being an Asian American was like, not like so much portrayed as a bad thing, but it was portrayed as something that like brought trouble to your life.

Whether that trouble was like, you know, experiencing racism or. You know, the conflict between you and your parents because of like cultural clashes or things like that. And you know, of course these are like important topics that happen to real kids and are real things and they definitely deserve to be covered and address and stories.

But I think the problem is not that they're addressing stories. I think the problem when I was a kid is that this was like the only a way that being Asian American was dressed in stories. So it's important to me that. You know, I address these topics in some books or they, you know, they organically arise or, or make sense.

And then I have other books where it's more about just celebrating all the wonderful parts of being Asian-American and then showing, you know, Asian American kids, but also kids who aren't Asian American that like, it's not all just like doom and gloom. So there are wonderful things that you, you know, having this other culture brings your life.

And for example, like an Amy, woo. I wanted to show this family that is loving and wonderful, where everybody supports each other and supports like Amy's imagination and her gumption and in other books too, like for example, in, um, the emperor's riddle, I wanted, you know, like there to be representation of different.

Like personalities. Right. I think it's kind of like a stereotype, for example, in books about Asian Americans that like Asian-American parents, like don't support like imagination or like fun or adventures. And obviously not every family is like that. So like in the emperor's riddle, the main character Mia, like her mom is a little bit more like practical minded and things like that.

But her aunt is much more supportive of me as like adventures and imaginative mind. And so I wanted there to be like different facets to different characters and, you know, Not just like staying in the same rots of like the, I feel like a lot of this year types that have been portrayed in media, like over time.

Yeah. I love that. You also said like, you know, in the future books that you're working on as well, that being Asian, isn't even a thing beyond the fact that they're just an Asian character. Like it doesn't have to dive into a lot of the history or a lot of the, whatever impressions that come with it. It's just, that's who you are.

And that's just, you know, how you're gonna move through the world. And I love hearing that as well. Cause I think that being able to have that. Does create, you know, kind of this understanding that we're evolving and that, you know, there's just so much growth ahead. And so many opportunities. How do you come up with the ideas that you come up with for the books that you write?

Yeah, I think that's like a hard question to answer. I think they just like come from everywhere. And the, the bigger issue often is that, like, you just don't have enough time to like write every story idea that comes into your head. I used to, and I still like contribute to it in time to time. Although not as much anymore is that I had this like, document that was just like every single idea that like ever.

And most of them are like really small things. Like, it won't be like a whole plot. It would just be like one scene or even like an outfit that I see, like in a magazine somewhere or in a photograph somewhere. And I'm like, Oh wait, I really want to write that outfit, like into like a meaning novel or just like one like relationship, right.

Or like something that like came through and there's been a couple. Um, books where I've like drawn ideas, like from that sheet, like, like three different ideas and then they stitch them together and they're like, make like a story, but I don't know sometimes like you get lots of ideas. And I think one of the parts about like being an author is realizing that like an idea is not always a story that you need a lot more than that to carry you through.

So I think ideas are sometimes easy to get, but getting one to develop into an actual book is, is like where it gets harder. Mm, I'm so curious because fantasy and science fiction and that those genres are still like very foreign to me because I feel like it involves a lot of personal permission to just kind of dream and visualize and have no parameters or no boundaries.

And having grown up in a very like structured, rigid. These are the like steps that you take to create kind of the life that is expected. It involves a lot of breaking through those personal boundaries or the culture ones or familial, whatever. How is it that you are able to, you know, write for this genre?

Like, was it ever challenging for you or was that just kind of just a natural innate thing? Just to move into that? I think like you, I don't know. I feel like ever since I was a kid, I've been prone to like daydreaming and just like, thinking about things. And I think it is easier when I was like younger and you have like fewer responsibilities and you have this, like, child's like imagination and like lots of free time to just like, Daydream and like read.

And I think a lot of it is like also like reading because like even fantasy, like comes from somewhere and like even a fantastical idea or world that like, you know, a reader might think like, Oh, wow, like that's so unique. Like that's not built on anything else. That's probably not true. Like, it was built on like the, the fodder that, that author, or that, you know, that creator has like seen elsewhere.

And they just like tweaked it a little, they took two ideas and they like mesh them together and made like a third, like newer idea. But it is like all built. Probably on like, things that they've discovered either in the real world or like in other forms of media. And I think it does like, take a certain permission, especially as an adult with like other responsibilities and like so many like mundane, like regular world stuff now, like weighing down your thoughts in your head to try to put yourself back in that, like that like childlike openness of just like, I'm just going to let myself like dream and think.

And for me, like I know some authors, I always talk about like, Oh, like I just like. I think of ideas in the back and be like, I go for like a walk on like the shore side and like things like come to me. But for me, like I'm less good about like daydreaming, just like. Without any sort of like writing going on.

I feel like I to get a lot of aid from just like stream of consciousness, like rating and it helps put just enough structure to my daydreaming that it just, just like go in circles and like nowhere. So yeah, I do, like, I think once I get like a kernel of an idea and I want to make into something more, I do a lot of like stream of consciousness, like writing and figuring out where it could go.

Mm, that's awesome. What was your publishing journey like? Like how, how did you, I know you said that you were very singularly focused on like, you know, you knew that this is what you wanted, but for a lot of people as well, they've heard the stories of like getting published as hard, you know, getting an agent or an editor.

Can you talk a little bit about what that experience is like? Yeah. So I think the wonderful thing about when I was first starting to pursue publishing and of course now even more so I think is just like how much help there is on the internet. And that was certainly like a big part for me was just like the fact that I could just like Google like so much information about how to do this.

But also I was really lucky in finding like some mentors who were just like a little bit further ahead than me in the publishing journey. And certainly, especially when I was just starting out, that was a lot of help to like, have someone. You know, to ask questions and to like guide me in, like, this is how you like write a query letter.

This is like how you submit things. But a lot of that stuff is also like online. There's so many like blogs and like, just like how to like, you know, post about things like that. I think I was pretty lucky in that. I think I queried for. I can't remember a couple of months before I found my agent who I'm still with many well, and she's been amazing.

And like, once you have an agent, like obviously they do so much and like guiding you in your publishing journey as well. And yeah, like I think, you know, Things have gone pretty smoothly.

There are, there definitely have been books that like don't sell like books that you really hope will sell and you work really hard on and your agent work with you really hard on. And then unfortunately, like they just like, don't find like the right market or like, you know, editors say like, this is good, but like, I don't like this part or I just, I don't think like we could, you know, sell this book like very well, and that's always like really disappointing, but I think that.

You know, that happens to most authors, like even after they, you know, sell the first book with the first couple of books, there'll always be the question of like, you know, will the next door make it out there. But yeah, like I've also been really lucky and I, and I've been so happy, especially to be able to write for like different genres, something that, again, I never thought I was going to do like starting out.

And now I can't imagine, like, not being able to like work with kids of different ages. I've always really loved doing school visits and it's. Obviously like amazing to talk with teenagers. It's such like a special like age group, but I've also discovered I just, I really love working with like small kids.

There's just something really, really amazing about doing a school visit with like kindergartners or like first graders. Everybody's. So excited and so adorable. That's been a really awesome time and I never would have been able to do stuff like that. If I hadn't started writing for younger kids. That's so wonderful.

What's been the feedback. Have you gotten feedback from, you know, parents or different young adults about the books that you've written. Honestly, the feedback for the Amy Lou books have like, has like really like bowled me over again, like the idea to write picture books at all. And Amy Lou was kind of like, you know, a sudden inspiration and then I just kind of like dove into it.

And I've been so grateful for like all the people who seem to have really loved Amy Wu and like sent me, I've got all, I've gotten all these like emails and like Instagram, like posts and things like that about people telling me like how much the book means to them. And I get, you know, these adorable videos of like, Others talking about Amy Wu or like wanting to be like Amy Wu and like people send me their photographs with like the bow they and their kids have made.

It's so cute. And it's been really awesome. That's so sweet. All how wonderful. I love all of that. I mean, I reached out to you. I was like, Oh my God, my daughter loved this book. And then, you know, when it comes to. I always ask this to all of my guests. Like in terms of the idea of saving face, is there something that you wish that more people would know about or something taboo or just, you know, like a cultural shift and idea shift that you'd like either fellow Asian Americans or anybody to know about.

Yeah, I think, I think we touched on it a little bit earlier when I just said like, you know, I feel like there are so many different ways of being like Asian-American and in America now. And I wish that it would be reflected more in, in the media that we have and the books that we have. And again, I do think that we're moving in the right direction, but I just, like, I really want there to be.

You know, somebody in books for kids who are Asian-American of Latin, who view themselves in a lot of different ways, it's still be able to see themselves. Like, you know, obviously for some people they grow up like very deeply enmeshed with their culture. And it's a huge part of their lives.

And they grew up surrounded by lots of the other Asian-Americans and that's like a big thing to them. And then there are other Asian American kids who. Don't have that as a huge part of their lives. And they just, you know, don't feel like it's like a big deal to them. And then they're like kids like right in the middle when there's no right or wrong way to be.

And I don't know, I want that to be like represented for them in all the media they consume so that they can see themselves like wherever they want. I love it. And how do you feel now, you know, achieving your dream of getting published, how does it feel. I feel lucky all the time that I get to do this.

And I just really, really hope that, you know, I'll be able to continue doing it because it's really amazing. I'm so excited. I'm excited about the other books that are going to pop into your mind that you like publish out there in the world. I'm excited to start reading more of the, you know, as my daughter grows older, the more of the science section she's super into mysteries right now.

So all of that. Yeah. But. I just, I'm so grateful for all that you're doing and, you know, infusing more diversity and just uniqueness and the stories that you tell. It's wonderful. Thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. Also on Amazon got like five star reviews for your book. It's a wonderful, but if people want to follow you a bit more or they want to go buy one of the books that you've written, where can they find you?

My website is just my name cat saying.com. And then as probably the best jumping off point, I have links to all my social media and see, you know, uh, links for how to buy the books. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If you liked what you heard and know someone in your life who might also benefit from hearing this episode, please feel free to share it with them.

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