One thing that worries me about the next several years is that I will no longer be studying writing, and it will be a lot more awkward sending my work to my old teachers from college. Most of those teachers probably have me pegged as the “sentimental Asian-American fic” girl. And in some of my classes, the professors actually discouraged us from writing fantasy. The whole “write what you know” thing was something I heard often, and if you want your humanities classmates to snort at you from behind their moleskin notebooks and organic soy lattes (ok this is a mean stereotype but this was actually a majority at my school), there is no better way than to submit a fantasy for workshop.

Magical realism? That’s cool. Dystopian science fiction. You’re cutting it close. But fantasy? Go back to playing with Lord of the Rings action figures in your parents’ basement, you comic-con reject, and never come back. We are serious writers, here.

I wish I had a sort of writing-Obi-Wan-Kenobi, a guide and teacher to encourage me and to give me helpful feedback…Oh man if only he was Tolkien or McCarthy…

But with all that being said, I will continue to write Vietnamese-American fiction…

Aaaaand this is marginally related, but just before graduation someone told me that after 4 years of knowing me, she still thought of me as a writing major or at least some other humanities major, and definitely not a bio major pre-med. Is it weird that I’m actually very proud of that?