Spring is one of my favorite seasons for all the flowers in bloom, despite my allergies. I also draw inspiration from the beauty in nature. I've been a student of Chinese brush painting for almost two decades. Share three people, places, or things that inspire your creativity. These serve as markers while I write the story. Before I start a novel, I'd like to have at least six or so scenes in my mind, not fully fleshed, but perhaps dialogue or a place, some moment in time. I am not a true pantser (write by the seat of your pants) in the sense that I go into a novel not knowing anything, but I don't do much planning either. I've been a pretty linear writer with my last few novels. Tell me a little bit about your writing process: Do you outline? Start at the beginning? The middle? The end? Many of the places I visited and things I experienced made their way into this book. I really wanted to bring Taipei, my birth city, to life for the reader. I'm naturally a very sensory reader, and there's nothing more sensory than going to the place you want to write about. I did! I took a big mother and daughter trip there (with my mom) in 2013.

Did you conduct any research to create the setting?

So it's been a long time coming, and scary when many readers, including Veronica Roth who kindly blurbed the book, call it 'timely'. Want has the most politically heavy themes of any novel I had written, but I started it back in 2011. Inspiration wise, I took headlines directly from what's happening in China as far as pollution and how much it affects health (the Chinese in the north have their life expectancies cut by 5+ years due to pollution), and the disparity in wealth is something I see here in our own country, but replicated in other countries as well. I joke that I needed to rename Want a retro near-future thriller soon. Can you speak about your inspiration for this premise? The premise of Want is terrifying, partially because of the concept, but also because the rift between socioeconomic classes already feels so wide right now.

Want book cindy