We adults all stay sixteen or so in some corner of the soul.

We adults all stay sixteen or so in some corner of the soul.

There weren't too many books featuring other cultures and countries when I was growing up as an immigrant kid here in the States.

I hope and pray that despite an unhealed past full of atrocities and deep divisions in the present, God can and will make "the distant near" and a "brother of the stranger" in America's future.

Research is always a high priority in my fiction. Songs, fashion, politics, television, movies, trends - I try to get those details right.

Keep reading and writing, learn how to revise, and push through rejections. My second book, Monsoon Summer, was rejected over 20 times and finally came out 11 years after my first book! I'm glad I didn't give up. Neither should you.

American and Vietnamese characters alike leap to life through the voice and eyes of a tenyearold girl-a protagonist so strong, loving, and vivid I longed to hand her a wedge of freshly cut papaya.