Interview with Christine Truong

Khayrun Gure: What authors did you dislike at first but grew into?

Christine Truong: There’s no author that comes to mind, but there is an age range and genre I grew into. At first, I was mostly focused on action-based books, and I didn’t really like slow-paced books, but I grew into them as my tastes developed.

KG: Where did your idea come from? What was your inspiration when writing your piece?

CT: A while back, I randomly thought of this scene—a dramatic scene in my head where all hope rests on this one moment and there are so many factors between you and your goal and something you can’t even see. I really liked that dramatic scene and wondered how I could fit that into a story. Turns out it involved creating more than one universe, so right now my piece shows just the beginning of how this whole thing got started.

KG: Why do you think it is important to write in this genre?

CT: I think fantasy allows you to both be and go wild. I believe there are so many worlds that people can create that others can easily join in, and I find that very exciting.

KG: What’s your favourite under-appreciated novel?

CT: There’s this book of prose poetry called Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai. I looked online and it has won some awards, but I still feel like it’s a bit underappreciated because there hasn’t been a lot of talk about it from what I’ve seen, and it’s a book that I think deserves a lot of attention. It’s historical fiction; it’s based on Vietnamese immigrants, and I really like the medium that was chosen, so I want it to see a lot more views and attention.