Blackbird Fly was inspired by my own upbringing, growing up as the only Asian American or Filipino American in my school and kind of the cultural struggles between she [Apple] and her mother, but also she and her peers.
A Land of Forgotten Girls is my favorite. It celebrates imagination. And it’s about two sisters, Ming and Sol who are growing up in very dire circumstances, but they use their imaginations to escape, mentally escape what they’re going through. So it’s my letter to the celebration of imagination I’ll say.
Hello, Universe was inspired by Virgil actually and this idea of wanting to tell the story of a very shy sensitive boy, and it grew from there.
You Go First was inspired by this idea of lunch, which sounds strange, but you know when you’re in school lunch is a very precarious and scary time. So I wanted to write a book about two characters who eat lunch alone. And it’s how the story built. That’s where it came from.