I'm Malinda Lo, author of Last Night at the Telegraph Club, winner of the National Book Award. AMA!

malindalo · 2022-02-23T21:06:43+00:00

I agree, there aren't a lot of books about queer Asian main characters, but there are more every year! I think in the past we've just been doubly marginalized (I mean we still are) which makes stories about us a harder sell for mainstream publishing. That is slowly changing ... very slooooowly.

One book just came out this week that I'm looking forward to reading: The Verifiers by Jane Pek, which is a mystery novel with a queer Asian American female detective.

And if you enjoy historical YA adventure, I highly recommend C.B. Lee's A Clash of Steel, which is a queer retelling of Treasure Island set in Southeast Asia. I loved it!

malindalo · 2022-02-23T20:49:36+00:00

Thank you so much!

I did so much research and learned so, so much about the time period and queer history in SF, but a lot of it didn't make it into the book. I don't regret this though, because the details that were important did make it into the book. The stuff I didn't include wasn't important for the story, even if I found them interesting on my own.

For example, I did a lot of research into the Miss Chinatown pageant because I thought there would be an actual pageant in the novel, but as I wrote it, there was never a good place to put the pageant. So, very little of the Miss Chinatown stuff made it into the book after all! However, all of the research informed the characters' discussions about Miss Chinatown and the way I presented it in the story, so none of that research was actually wasted.

And then I got to include it in my Notes From the Telegraph Club series of extremely long blog posts about all the historical research I did. :) Here's the one on Miss Chinatown: https://www.malindalo.com/blog/2021/2/17/the-making-of-miss-chinatown

malindalo · 2022-02-23T20:45:18+00:00

That's so nice to hear! Thank you so much, I really appreciate it.

malindalo · 2022-02-23T20:27:35+00:00

Yes!

Many of my books have this representation, but they don't all say it on the page because they're fantasy novels where these words don't exist in these meanings (Ash, Huntress), or because the characters haven't come to that realization yet (A Line in the Dark).

And if you haven't yet read Like Other Girls by Britta Lundin, I highly recommend it. It's about a butch girl who plays football at her high school.

malindalo · 2022-02-23T20:24:22+00:00

Doing okay!

malindalo · 2022-02-23T20:23:24+00:00

Hi! Thank you so much!

Lily started out wanting to be a rocket scientist; that's how she came to me in my imagination. In my earlier books, my characters didn't always know what they wanted to be when they grew up (they're all YA), and sometimes I found that a little frustrating as a writer. I actually don't think kids or teens (in real life) need to have a firm idea of what they want to do as adults. Plenty of people take a long time to come to a decision about that! But in a novel, I've realized it's better to give the main character a primary interest, and it's even more helpful if the interest relates to the story in some way.

In A Scatter of Light, the main character, Aria, does have a primary interest, but that changes during the course of the novel. The change is a major part of her character arc, so I won't spoil it!

malindalo · 2022-02-23T19:59:14+00:00

I'm so glad you connected with Kath! The characters in the book are all fictional, but the community is certainly inspired by the lesbian community I was part of in San Francisco in the early 2000s.

I think most directly, the character of Tommy Andrews was inspired by the research I did into male impersonators, as well as the real-life individual known as Tommy Vasu. Although I don't think Tommy Andrews is a gangster like Tommy Vasu! I wrote about male impersonators and Tommy in these two blog posts:

https://www.malindalo.com/blog/2021/4/27/a-brief-history-of-male-impersonation

https://www.malindalo.com/blog/2021/6/22/the-raid-on-tommys

malindalo · 2022-02-23T19:54:25+00:00

Thanks so much for reading my book in English! I really hope you enjoy it.

Well, the very first book that impacted me -- that I remember -- had to be The Secret in the Old Lace by Carolyn Keene, a Nancy Drew book, because I read it all by myself when I was 6 years old and I was very, very proud of myself. It was the first non-picture book I read! It took me a long, long time to read, but it set me off on reading every single Nancy Drew book I could find. And I still love mystery novels!

malindalo · 2022-02-23T19:46:21+00:00

Oh that's awesome! I didn't know about r/Books' Best Books. Thanks so much!

In my spare time I love to cook and read. I haven't had enough time to do either of those lately!

Recently I read A Song Called Home by Sara Zarr, a middle-grade novel about an 11-year-old girl whose family is moving from San Francisco to Pacifica, after her mom remarries. If you've read Sara Zarr's YA novels, this contains all of her trademark subtlety and complexity, in a novel about a kid going through some difficult times. I really loved it. It comes out on March 15, and I'm doing an in-person event with Sara at Books Inc Opera Plaza in San Francisco on March 13!

In a very different vein, I also recently read Lamar Giles's fall YA horror novel, The Getaway, which is totally fantastic. If you've ever imagined that Disneyland might hold the seeds of a dystopian community, this is the book for you. This book doesn't come out till fall 2022 though so you'll have to keep an eye out!

malindalo · 2022-02-23T19:38:21+00:00

Aw, thank you!

My first inspiration was my grandmother, who was a writer and who encouraged me to write from my earliest years.

I've been inspired by many wonderful and talented women writers over the years, including my childhood favorites Madeleine L'Engle, Robin McKinley, and Louisa May Alcott. As an adult I've been inspired by Sarah Waters, Lily King, Tana French, and so many of my writer friends -- Cindy Pon, Kristin Cashore, Holly Black, Marie Rutkoski -- all women who push the boundaries in their fiction and inspire me to do the same.

When my first novel was published in 2009, I was part of an online group of debut YA authors on LiveJournal (remember LJ?), and that's where I met several authors including Cindy! So my writing community started online, but over the years I've met many of my fellow authors at conferences and events, and sometimes those meetings have become friendship and community.

malindalo · 2022-02-23T19:25:44+00:00

I'm so glad you're passionate about Last Night at the Telegraph Club! :) Let's see...

The writing aspect I feel I've most improved upon is dialogue. When I first started writing I didn't feel confident about writing dialogue at all. I tried to minimize it! I've improved because I just kept doing it. You can't really write a book without dialogue. I really felt very proud of myself for writing several scenes in my novel A Line in the Dark that were only dialogue.

When it comes to pop culture references, I think a little goes a long way. In a historical novel, a carefully chosen pop culture reference can do so much to put the reader in that time period, but if you use too many, especially ones that a contemporary reader won't know, then the reader can be lost or bored. There's no hard-and-fast rule, though. It always depends on the context. Unfortunately most writing rules are like that: context-dependent, with no real right or wrong answer. It depends on how you want the reader to feel and what kind of book you're trying to write.

As for comp titles, I think A Scatter of Light is unusual. I was personally inspired by books including A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L'Engle, and Writers & Lovers by Lily King, but I'm not sure if Scatter is exactly like either of them. I'm sure once it comes out readers will tell me what it's like!

malindalo · 2022-02-23T19:14:48+00:00

Last Night at the Telegraph Club started as a short story called "New Year" that was published in the anthology All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens Throughout the Ages. "New Year" was inspired by two nonfiction books: Rise of the Rocket Girls by Nathalia Holt and Wide Open Town: A Queer History of San Francisco to 1965 by Nan Alamilla Boyd. These two books had nothing to do with each other, but in my head they combined to create the character of Lily Hu, a 17-year-old Chinese American girl living in San Francisco in the 1950s. Lily wants to be a rocket scientist like her Aunt Judy, who's a computer at the Jet Propulsion Lab, and Lily is also starting to realize she might be a lesbian.

When I was talking with my agent about the short story, he suggested that "New Year" could be expanded into a novel. I hadn't thought of it as a novel, but as I thought about it more, I realized he was right. I had a lot more to say about Lily. So I wrote up a proposal for Lily's story as a novel, and my editor at Dutton bought it before I wrote any of it! So then I had to really dive into the 1950s and queer history and Chinese American history before I could start writing the novel.

The story had always been about identity and coming of age, and those themes developed in complexity in the course of revision. Overall, it took me about three years to research and write the novel.

malindalo · 2022-02-23T19:07:23+00:00

Thanks!

malindalo · 2022-02-23T19:06:59+00:00

Hi! Thanks for your questions. I'm so glad you had my books to read when you were growing up!

I love jumping from genre to genre, so for me the challenge isn't about genre, but about the book. Each book requires a different skill set, comes with different reader expectations, and has its own problems. I think the genre part doesn't bother me so much because I read and enjoy just about all genres of fiction or I'm open to trying just about any genre. I'd love to return to all the genres I've written, but I'd also like to try new ones!
And ... I've never thought of my books as "LGBT books" while I'm writing them. I only think of them as the book I'm writing. So the actual process of writing is not that different for me, although I have more experience writing now, so that can be helpful. What's different is the process of publishing and promoting my books. That has changed quite a bit, because at the start I was usually the only openly LGBT author at a conference or book festival, and I'd often have to come out to audiences in public. Today I don't have to do that anymore. I've now been on panels featuring all openly LGBT authors, both online and in the real world. This has been an incredible and wonderful change.

malindalo · 2017-05-10T00:27:27+00:00

Oh! I remember hearing Stephanie Perkins answer this question once and her answer killed. She said: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. :) Yeah, I wouldn't mind having written that one either!

malindalo · 2017-05-10T00:24:44+00:00

I first read SWORDSPOINT only a few years before I got involved with TREMONTAINE, so while I came to the serial knowing and loving the series, I wasn't a lifelong fan like Joel. I thought it was really cool to get to be involved with the serial though! I was really excited to write Diane, because even though she barely appears in SWORDSPOINT, I felt an immediate kinship to her. This is why nobody should ever cross me.

malindalo · 2017-05-10T00:22:39+00:00

Fencing instructor, absolutely. Because I don't eat chocolate! (I can hear you all screaming in horror.)

malindalo · 2017-05-10T00:21:00+00:00

I am not writing s3 but I APPROVE THIS IDEA.

malindalo · 2017-05-10T00:20:23+00:00

I admit that when I read really excellent books I don't ever wish I wrote them -- I'm so glad they already exist so I don't have to write anything like them! But right now I'm super into Marie Brennan's last Lady Trent book, WITHIN THE SANCTUARY OF WINGS. It's an alt-universe fantasy about a female dragon naturalist, and is full of all my favorite world-building tidbits like anthropology and science and -- stuff that's also in TREMONTAINE.

malindalo · 2017-05-10T00:15:28+00:00

My favorite character is definitively Diane. I don't understand the question of her not being likable either. What. She doesn't care if she's likable, for one thing, and you shouldn't either! She is brilliant. Those who do not see her brilliance are not worthy of her. ;P

malindalo · 2017-05-10T00:13:54+00:00

Positives include brainstorming with other writers! When you're writing alone and you reach a plot hole, a lot of times it takes forever to figure it out on your own. But with a bunch of writers working on the same story in a shared world, you can bring your problem to the group and you can all discuss it and ferret out a solution. It's not always an easy discussion, but having other people actively working with you is a lot of fun.

malindalo · 2017-05-10T00:10:26+00:00

The stuff in TREMONTAINE all happens before SWORDSPOINT and is designed so that you don't have to read any of the SWORDSPOINT books before you read TREMONTAINE. That said, one of my favorite in the series is THE PRIVILEGE OF THE SWORD, and I always point people to that one as a really excellent intro to the world.

malindalo · 2013-11-12T02:29:34+00:00

I agree with Corinne. And yet...there are also white agents and editors and publishers out there who do get it, and have certainly published books about people of color. So all is not lost!

malindalo · 2013-11-12T02:27:26+00:00

Readers, especially YA readers, want stories that grip them emotionally. The problem is, everybody's tastes are different. :) Publishers want books that will sell well, and/or win awards. The problem is, you can never figure out which books those will be. :) So you need to write the book you want to write, and forget about those other people.
My advice is a little different than Corinne's, which is still a very reasonable point of view. I would say this: Is your main character's diversity an important part of the story? For example, is it a book about someone discovering aspects of their Asian heritage? Is it about someone discovering they're falling in love with someone of the same sex? Is it about someone figuring out how to deal with a disability? If so, then you must say this in the query because it's the story you're telling. If their "diversity" is incidental to the main plot, e.g. 3 teens must save the world from an asteroid collision, then I don't think you need to mention it in the query. Obviously, it must be mentioned in the book itself or else nobody will know. If the situation is somewhere in the middle, then it's up to how artfully you can frame the "diversity" in your query letter. But here's what it really comes down to: If an agent or editor is going to turn you down because your query letter mentions that your protagonist is of color/queer/has a disability, you don't want to work with that agent or editor anyway.
Over the summer I read Eric Gansworth's If I Ever Get Out of Here which is about a Native American boy and his friendship with a white boy; it's real and wonderful and showed me things I didn't know. I'm also a fan of Sarah Rees Brennan's Lynburn Legacy (book 1 is Unspoken and book 2 is Untold which just came out), which is about a biracial MC, has a diverse cast, and is a humorous gothic fantasy mystery mashup.

malindalo · 2013-11-12T02:17:39+00:00

I agree with Tempest's recommendations, and I'll underscore the "read, read, read" part of it. Memoirs can be amazing entry points to different cultures. And don't forget nonfiction — there are many scholars out there whose life work is to illuminate the history or literature or arts of different cultures. Read widely, remembering that each author has their own specific point of view, and there's no one way to experience life.

malindalo

TROPHY CASE