I think I'm good at metaphors and descriptions. Plot doesn't come naturally to me, so I work really hard at it.
— Celeste Ng
I think, in the United States, we talk about race as a black and white issue... We're generally talking about it as if it's a binary equation whereas, in fact, there's more than two races and, in fact, those races blend together. There are a lot of different ways that people identify.
As soon as I could write, I was writing stories.
I'm fascinated by the ways people under repressive regimes still manage to share information - and joy.
One of the most fun things for me, as a writer, is when readers ask questions like, 'Oh, I noticed that you have a lot of water and baptism imagery in your book. Did you do that on purpose?'
For the first three years of his life, my son insisted on hearing 'Goodnight Moon' before bedtime. Like most babies, he was not a good sleeper by disposition - but reading seemed to help, and this book specifically became part of his whole wind-down ritual.
I'm really interested in how we understand each other - and whether we can understand each other.
I think one of the reasons that I like fiction versus nonfiction is that I myself can kind of disappear from the story.
I loved growing up in Shaker Heights, and I really miss it.
With the first novel, I was concerned I would be pigeon-holed as an Asian-American writer, and the book would be labeled for Asian-Americans only.
Writing, for me, is an extension of thinking - it's my way of processing, and only when I've gotten something down on the page have I thought through it fully.
There's this sense that whiteness is the default and does not need to be questioned. That you've got a race if you're black, or any kind of Asian, or any kind of Native American, but that you have no race if you are white.
Writing is like shouting into the world. So when someone shouts back, it's a really big deal. To have people who read hundreds and hundreds of books a year say, 'Hey, we thought this was really great,' that's a huge self-esteem boost.
My mother is deeply pragmatic by nature. Perhaps you had to be, as an immigrant. You made do.
You may not be a fan of Twitter-fiction. That's okay. There are novels out there for you - big ones.
When reading fiction, we cannot automatically assume that what we read is fact.
Even if Pearl S. Buck hadn't spent most of her life in China, she'd have every right to write about it.
Honestly, if anyone reads my work, they're doing me a favor, so they get to use whatever words they want to describe it. I can't control that, nor if they like the work, so best not to even try.
I have an interest in the outsider.
What I remember about race relations in the 1990s is that you showed your awareness by saying you didn't see race, that you were colour-blind.
Taste is idiosyncratic, so I don't love everything people recommend me, and I don't love everything my friends love.
In my own work, when I start off writing a scene, I don't know which physical details are going to turn out to be meaningful. But, inevitably, certain images will stand out - you start to decide which ones are important as you go.
I wanted to write a book about people who have the best intentions and think - really, truly think - that they're doing the right thing. And then they realize that when those ideals come knocking at their windowsill, a lot of times they will suddenly disavow those ideals.
No reader wants to sit through the same scene four times in a row, unless they're radically different.
I'm very much a people pleaser, and the first book had such a devoted and loving following.
Debut novels are difficult because nobody knows you... they just don't find a huge audience, because that's how the market works.
With the first novel, I had to tell myself, 'No one is ever going to read it, so you might as well just write it.' With the second, I was pretty sure someone was going to read it.
My husband really treats my writing like it's a job - and he reminds me of that when I have those low moments where I think I should just quit and become a waitress.
I did a lot of weird jobs, like most writers do.
My mother ended up getting a Ph.D. of her own, in chemistry, and eventually became a tenured professor.
Growing up, I loved looking at the photos in my mother's old Betty Crocker cookbook: the chocolate cakes, the cookie house, even the cheese balls and fondues.
The competitions between fiction and nonfiction, short and long, electronic and paper, are not battles in which there can be only one victor. After all, we exist in a world where more kinds of writing than ever are greeted with interest and enthusiasm.
Can fiction teach us? Absolutely. Fiction has the power to illustrate place, era, and atmosphere in vivid detail. But it is not Anthropology for Dummies.
A love of reading shows empathy, the desire to understand how others live or act or might act - and why.
Words are an imperfect medium for explaining.
In fiction you're not often writing about the typical; you are interested in outliers, the points of interest. Part of it comes from feeling I was the only Asian or person of colour... another part comes from my personality: I'm an introvert, and my usual survival mode in a large group is to stand by a wall and watch everybody.
Rebecca Solnit is a clarion voice of reason.
I have a bad habit of reading more than one book simultaneously!
One of the things I like so much about 'Goodnight Moon' is the way it leaves room for ambiguity.
We have to figure out why we see the world in different ways and then how are we going to adjust so that we can at least still understand each other.
What you look for as a reader is somebody who is going to take you and say, 'C'mon. Come into the story. I'm going to show you what there is to see.' The guide who is going to tell you, 'Pay attention over there,' or, 'Do you remember that other thing? Now watch!'
I really wanted to be a poet - until I realized that I really didn't have what it took to be a poet.
I wrote 'Little Fires Everywhere' and sold the book in 2015, still the Obama years. The possibility of a Trump presidency was not on my radar.
It's incredibly rewarding to have people come up to me at readings and say, 'I'm not Chinese, but this is the relationship I have with my mother.' Or say, 'Your book made me think a lot about my parents, and I've decided to sign up for counseling.' That is mind-boggling.
I was freelance proof-reading, freelance editing, creating illustrated slides for doctors' presentations - just so I'd have enough money to take the time to write. That's how I got by.
Writers, most of them, don't have a lot of resources.
When my father finished his Ph.D., my mother went back for another bachelor's degree, this time in environmental science.
The proliferation of styles, genres, and media need not be the death knell of anything. Instead, it's a sign that our acceptance for variation and experimentation has become wider, our interests have become more diverse, and our appetites have become more omnivorous.
Short fiction and the novel, nonfiction and fiction, electronic texts and books - these are not opposites. One need not destroy the other to survive.
Browse Amazon reviews, and you'll see a surprising number of readers who believe one novel can summarize a country, its culture, and its people.
