Thanks so much for reading my post. I underestimate how well it can do in Google searches and that authors might have an alert set up to be notified immediately of posts regarding their publications. That said, I’m so glad the BlogHer blogger mentioned your series amongst her list, making me aware of your books to add to my “To Read” list. That was my bottom line–the series intrigues me as someone who has been seeking novel Asian-American literature. I think I’m looking for the book that would best describe my life! (So I don’t have to write it.) Or it’s my “research” to see how others have done what I hope to eventually do. I’m curious how Asian American Christian culture is different from the Asian American culture I know.

It is fascinating how when a publisher is involved their wishes and expertise enter in the equation of producing the book. Your target market is not me exactly and so my opinion doesn’t matter quite as much. Even if I’m not Christian, I’m not exactly sure how it targets that genre, but I didn’t do my research on Christian literature covers to see the norm.

I spoke too quickly about the Japanese/Chinese part, assuming just Chinese ancestry based on your name and some Google search may have enlightened me to otherwise. I think it’s perfectly awesome to have the mix and have that reflected in your series. Hopefully readers will also notice and appreciate the differences amidst the similarities.

csg

As for the Japanese/Chinese part, I’m sorry if you thought it looks like I’m trying to make all Asians alike. I am fourth generation Japanese but most of my friends and my husband are Chinese American, so my Sushi series has cousins who are both Japanese and Chinese, to show the slight difference between the two cultures.

I also didn’t want to write the typical coming of age/coming to terms with her cultural identity women’s fiction novel about an Asian girl (which it seems to be what every other Asian writer writes about), so I wrote what I knew–growing up Asian American and having the same types of crazy/stupid things happen to her, having crazy/stupid relatives, and making crazy/stupid decisions. Also, I wanted to show the Asian American Christian culture, which I’ve found to be a slightly different subculture from the non-Christian Asian American culture.

As a writer, also, you don’t have to write only from experience. If you did, you’d run out of stuff after six or twelve books. My latest one is a cross between Stephanie Plum and Joy Luck Club, a humorous romantic suspense about the Japanese mafia in San Francisco, of which I have no personal experience. The research on that was a little touchy since there’s an actual Japanese mafia in San Francisco, and after talking to some FBI public relations people, I ended up creating an entirely fictional mafia family, similar to the Sopranos, focusing more on the family dynamics than the breaking kneecaps parts since it’s a humorous romance rather than a serious novel.

If you email me, I’d be happy to send you an Advanced Reading copy.
Camy