How did you become a writer?

I took a long winding journey to become a writer. I first became an engineer, then an immigrant, and then returned to school to study literature and writing. Read my journey in "Why I Write in English." For me, being a writer is not a title but a responsibility. I became a writer because I had to express my authentic experience as an Asian American.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).

When I was a child, I fell in love with Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables. When I was in college, Jane Austen, George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, Alice Munro, Zora Neale Hurston, and John Gardner changed my life. Then as a fiction writer, I admired Jhumpa Lahiri, Elizabeth Strout, Ha Jin, Kazuo Ishiguro, Elena Ferrante, Eileen Chang, and so many more.

English is my second language. My education was patchwork. People have mentioned that my novels remind them of the works by Barbara Kingsolver, Elena Ferrante, Gustave Flaubert, Henry James, Patricia Highsmith, and others. Then I rushed to read and learn from their great works.

When and where do you write?

Since I work as a computer engineer, and I have a family with children, I mostly write at night, on weekends and holidays. I cannot be picky about where I write. A desk behind a locked door is all I need. I call it going to my writing cave.

What are you working on now?

I have a new novel OASIS, currently looking for a home. It’s a story about two lovers being separated by the climate crisis—dust storms and desertification in northwest China. Kaier, the heroine, leaves her village, but her village never leaves her. She makes a courageous choice to go with her heart, which astonishes and gratifies me.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

I have suffered from writer’s slowdown rather than block. I call it my “fallow” period. No one expects the land, even fertile soil, to bear crops all year long, so why should a writer be productive every day? There is a time to sow seeds, thin seedlings, water and fertilize the plants, finally harvest and process the crops. A writer’s work is cyclical, like farming.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?

Don’t rely on symbolism; it is a crutch. Describe and reveal your character like a real person, someone like yourself.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Read good and enduring books, including the classics, books by minority writers, and literature in translation. Keep writing; don’t give up. Remember: only a born artist can endure the labor of becoming one.