Frequently Asked Questions
How do you pronounce your English name?
“A maily” like how you’d say “a daily” but with an “m”.
What’s the story behind your name?
After China’s Cultural Revolution and during its era of Reform and Opening Up, my parents were among the first group of students to test into university abroad. They studied in France, which is where I was born (and where my name comes from). When I was five, we moved back to Beijing, where I grew up.
How did you start writing?
I started writing to learn English when I was in China. I remember being at a coveted Scholastic Book Fair when the cover of a boy on a flying hippogriff caught my eye. I learned English by reading the entire Harry Potter series, which led me to discover a whole world of other fantasy books out there. In the fourth grade, I wrote a poem about a wolf on a prairie for English class, and my teacher read it aloud to the class. I will never forget how he looked me in the eye and said, “This is the best poem I’ve ever read.”
That was the day I decided I wanted to become an author. Thank you, Mr. M!
What are your favorite books?
I have so many, and they tend to change with time. To start off with at my roots:《红楼梦》or Dream of the Red Chamber is a Chinese staple, and my favorite out of all the Chinese classics. My favorite modern work is 桐华’s《长相思》，which was adapted into a Chinese xianxia romance drama of the same title. The English title is Lost You Forever.
Fantasy favorites include Circe, City of Brass, She Who Became the Sun, The Priory of the Orange Tree, Sorcery of Thorns, and Dreams Lie Beneath. General fiction favorites include Pachinko, When Breath Becomes Air, Educated, and Lady Tan’s Circle of Women.
What are your favorite TV shows?
- C-drama:《延禧攻略》(The Story of Yanxi Palace),《长相思》(Lost You Forever), and 《三十而已》(Nothing But Thirty).
- K-drama: Crash Landing On You and My Love From Another Star.
- Anime: Black Butler, Claymore, and Ouran High School Host Club, as well as the Chinese animated series《魔道祖师》(Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation).
- American drama: Stranger Things, Game of Thrones (seasons 1-4) and anything true crime.
- Reality show: Singles Inferno. (I’m always obsessively waiting for the next season!)
- Sports: Drive to Survive, Full Swing
What are your favorite foods?
Hotpot and spicy Chinese food all day, every day. (Specifically: Sichuanese and Hunanese spice.) Sometimes I do get a weird craving for unhealthy fried chicken and salads, exactly at the same time.
What type of music do you listen to?
I listen to a ton of sad Chinese drama OSTs for my writing these days, and I really do love them (my books have Spotify playlists, which I’ll re-share on this site soon) — but for C-pop, Jay Chou（周杰伦）and JJ Lin（林俊杰）easily take the cake. I adore BTS and I love K-pop as a catchy alternative to American pop. I had a J-pop phase back in high school, too.
What do you like to do in your spare time?
Happily, my biggest hobby — writing — turned into my other career. Besides that, there’s nothing I love more than traveling and there are so many places in the world I want to go! I also get very excited when I find delicious food — so finding delicious food while traveling is one of my favorite things ever.
How do you balance working a full-time finance job with publishing?
A lot of coffee, sleep sacrifices, and hyper-productivity. I’m someone who doesn’t like to not be doing things, working on something, or improving myself. My routine is to wake up at 6AM and write for about 2 hours before logging on for work. On days where I go into my office, I try to write at night when I get home. My brain tends to be fried by then from a full day of Bank Things so those are my days with lower word counts — if any at all. My best writing days are my weekends, which I hoard like a dragon. I’m super protective of Saturday and Sunday mornings where my mental energy’s at its peak, so I tend to only schedule later-afternoon social activities or dinners.
Also, having a wonderful partner to take on most Adulting things helps more than I can express. (Thank you, Clement.)
What advice do you have for aspiring writers?
Everyone has their own path and their own goals, so take everything anyone says with a grain of salt and pick and choose what advice works for you. My method for getting published was: 1) Read a lot and study the works you love in the genre you want to publish; 2) Actually write the book; 3) Have critique partners tear the book apart — sometimes multiple times — because outside feedback is one of the most important aspects of writing a book for me. Again, everyone’s path is going to look different, so just because one thing worked for one author doesn’t mean it’ll work for another!
What other books are you dreaming up?
More Chinese fantasy! I have so many stories I want to write.
