by Terry Hong
“The ideas of The Farm are ones that have obsessed me for decades: about “meritocracy” and the narrative of the American Dream; inequality and how we fail to see each other across divides of money or gender or race; motherhood and the sacrifices many women make for their children.” Continue reading
by Terry Hong
“Yes, I hoped and dreamed, of course (don’t we all?), but in the same way that you hope and dream you’ll win the lottery, not in the way that you think it will actually happen. It’s been an amazing ride …” Continue reading
by Terry Hong
“I think of an image, an event, a line, and I just go from there. I never have outlines. I never know where it’s going to go. The story reveals itself to me little by little.” Continue reading
by Terry Hong
“I was concerned the hegemony of American influence was changing the way the world thought, looked, and shopped.” Continue reading
by Terry Hong
I wondered if my cast of characters might feel off-putting to publishers, too bizarre or unconventional, and if it’d be easier if their cultural backgrounds were removed from the equation [but] my agent and editor never once saw my characters’ backgrounds as anything but enriching to the story. Continue reading
by Terry Hong
“For too long I’ve been preoccupied with ‘belonging’ . . . I realized what really matters most is that which keeps us grounded.” Continue reading
by Terry Hong
“I was trying to be subversive in not mentioning any character’s ethnicity … that’s how endemic the whole ethnic literature box was back then, this expectation that any Asian American story deal with discrimination or identity or diaspora. It’s still like that in many ways.” Continue reading
