There are no easy answers in YELLOWFACE about cultural appropriation. But the way we talk about who-can-write-what is so reductive, and often pigeonholes marginalized writers more often than it opens up questions about representation, profit, and whose stories are being spotlighted/promoted/assigned value. I feel quite strongly that we should not put authors into boxes or tell them what they can/can't write based on their racial identity.

Anyways I’m a Bourdieu girl and it shows. I am interested in the social capital that comes with (and sometimes motivates) the hit piece and the call-out, in who gets to determine what is authentic and what counts as good representation, in who recovers from public pile-ons and who doesn’t, in how we constantly flatten complicated questions of creative identity into hot takes and soundbites, in what this environment of constant competition and comparison against people you’ve never met is doing to this generation of writers, and in who really stands to benefit when communities tear each other apart. I am interested in how every social media interaction is a performance, how we build parasocial relationships with constructed personalities, how easily snippets of misinformation can turn into a wildfire, and how we all go to pieces when it’s revealed (as is always the case) that things are not as they seem.

What is Yellowface about? Aside from the obvious questions of whiteness in publishing and the persistent erasure of Asian voices in Western literature, I am interested in the specific horrors of being writers, readers, and critics on the internet in 2022 in a literary field that is so intensely connected, fragmented, and artificial. If reading it feels a bit like watching a train crash in slow motion, then I’ll have done my job. You’re supposed to feel sick to your stomach, and sick of everyone involved, and unsure of what to believe except that you still can’t look away. I’ve tried to imitate the breathless, gossipy voice of tabloids and viral threads (you know, the ones with flagrant disregard for truth). Babel is a slow read Yellowface is meant to be devoured in a single sitting. Babel was my big ponderous Dickensian bildungsroman Yellowface, on the other hand, is a zippy, ridiculous, thriller meant to imitate the roiling schadenfreude of watching a Twitter meltdown. Since wrapping up the Poppy War trilogy I’ve enjoyed playing around with vastly different genres and writing styles. Yellowface could not be more different from my previous work. It's coming out in a month and I can't wait to share it with you all. Since wrapping up the Poppy War trilogy I’ve enjoyed playing aro This is my book! My ridiculous, absurd, gremlin book.

This is my book! My ridiculous, absurd, gremlin book. 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

The poppy war book 2