>> Lee Ann Potter: Good afternoon. >> Good afternoon [Multiple Speakers]. >> Lee Ann Potter: Happy to see a nice crowd this afternoon. Welcome. My name is Lee Ann Potter and I direct the Office of Learning and Innovation at the Library of Congress and it is really my pleasure to welcome you to the Teen Stage this afternoon. And more importantly, of course, welcome you to the 19th Annual National Book Festival sponsored by the Library of Congress. I have a little script I need to read but before I do, I want to tell you about a little experience I just had. I took a break. I got to open the Purple Stage this morning, which was great fun. Were any of you there? Awesome. Did those of you who weren't there, did you hear us open the Purple Stage? We were a little loud, it was good. So, between opening the Purple Stage and coming here I walked over to a coffee shop to take a little bit of a gather-my-thoughts break and came back and as I was crossing the street I overheard a conversation between a boy of about 10-years-old and his mom. And they were coming into the book festival and the young man says to his mom, hey mom do you have our tickets? And she said, we don't need any. It's free. Anybody can go. And he's like, that's cool. And I thought, you know, that's fabulous. What the 10-year-old boy said is absolutely true. It is cool. And that's sort of where my script begins. So, bear with me but I hope you'll sort of let that 10-year-old's comment resonate. This festival is, in fact, free of charge thanks to the generosity of donors large and small. If you wish to make a donation, please do so on the festival app under the word donate. It's on the app's home page. We really do appreciate your support for this great celebration of books and reading. It's pretty extraordinary that this is a free event. We hope this day inspires you to make use of the incomparable resources of the Library of Congress and know that the Library of Congress is something, I don't want to say it's a misnomer but not only is it the Library of Congress but it is also your national library. And making good use of it is absolutely not an opportunity but perhaps a responsibility that we all have. We are thrilled to announce that the library's brand new National BookXcess Festival Presents series is going to begin later this, actually in the middle of September, on September 11th. It will extend the reach of our festival with more exciting book events at the library. Please check the library's website, loc dot gov, for updates on all of the programming for children as well as adults and how ticketing is going to work for each one. We welcome your questions at the end of our conversation this afternoon and if you have questions specifically for the author, please make your questions brief and to the point. And please remember that you are giving us permission to use your question in the webcast so years and years from now, you know your children and grandchildren can see the questions that you asked. And finally, I ask you to turn off or at least mute your cell phones. Thank you very much. Okay, now I get to really fun introductions. Thank you. It is my pleasure to serve as the moderator for this special conversation entitled Finding Their Voices and to welcome our two authors, Mitali Perkins and Misa Sugiura. You guys can clap if you want to [applause]. We're going to like this audience. Okay. Mitali Perkins has written many novels for young readers including "Rickshaw Girl" that you may know is becoming a movie. Maybe we can talk a little bit about that. A New York Public Library top 100 book. "Bamboo People", an American Library Association top 10 young adult novel and "You Bring the Distant Near" which was a Walter Honor book, a national book award nominee and received six starred reviews. Perkins was born in India and has lived in Bangladesh, England,Thailand, Mexico, Cameroon, and Ghana. Her new book is "Forward Me Back to You" published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Deep breath. Misa Sugiura's ancestors include a poet, a priestess, a samurai and a stowaway. She grew up in Northfield, Illinois and went to college on the east coast. She lived in Japan for three years before moving to the Silicon Valley and became a high school English teacher. She's the author of the award-winning "It's Not Like It's a Secret" and her new book "This Time Will Be Different". Help me welcome Mitali and Misa [applause]. All right. So, I thought we would start our conversation this afternoon by me just asking the two of you to tell us a little bit about your new books and focus your descriptions on some of the characters and then we'll lead our conversation from there. Mitali, do you want to start? >> Mitali Perkins: Sure. >> Lee Ann Potter: Okay. >> Mitali Perkins: It's good to see you all this afternoon. My book Forward Me Back To You, I don't know if any of you have seen some of your friends who have experienced a significant trauma. And after they grieve they begin to start some sort of gofundme or fundraiser that specifically focuses on moving forward through helping other people. Have you seen that in your experience? People trying to recover from their personal traumas by leaning into giving. That always intrigued me as a way to recover from trauma. So, this story, Forward Me Back To You, is about two teens, Kat [assumed spelling] who grew up in Oakland. She's growing up with a single mom. We both have that in common in our novels. And Robie [assumed spelling], or Robin [assumed spelling] as an American name is adopted from Kolkata, which is where I was born, and they meet in Boston. And they are both considering the invitation to go work for the summer with an anti trafficking organization in Kolkata. Neither of them really wants to go but they meet a woman named Grandma Vee and she, too, has suffered her trauma and she introduces them to this principal that she calls golden ruling. And it's akin to what I talked about in the beginning of when I introduced the book. It's about loving your neighbor as yourself and that is one way to move forward when you've experienced trauma as both Kat and Robie had. Robie was abandoned and now adopted by white parents. And so he's dealing both with the loss of his biological family as well as the loss of his ethnic identity. What does it mean to be Bengali when you have two white parents? And Kat also's dealing with her own particular trauma which involves a stairwell incident and she's a Brazilian jiu jitsu champion in Northern California. So, the book has a lot of that Brazilian jiu jitsu in it. That was fun to research and it's interesting because it's about trauma, but it's about hope and it has a little bit of a Bollywood vibe in it. I can't quite help putting in a little bit of humor and that's just my voice talking about voice. So, when you try to write about these issues like trafficking, abandonment, trauma and you try to put in Bollywood dancing and singing and humor, that's challenging and that was fun to write, so. >> Lee Ann Potter: Outstanding. Good summary. All right. Misa. >> Misa Suriura: Yes. I just want to say that I love that Robie is, like looks like a movie star. But he doesn't look like, know that he looks like a movie star until he goes to India, which I think is so telling [laughter]. >> Mitali Perkins: Right. We talk about how to write hot Asian guys. >> Misa Suriura: Yes [laughter]. >> Mitali Perkins: Both of us have that in common [laughter]. Yes. So, yeah, there is a, there is this handsome Asian boy in my book too. That was something that I did on purpose, so I didn't see a lot of those in books or movies. So, anyway, but the actual main character is a girl named CJ Katsuyama. And she has been sort of struggling under the weight of her mother's expectations. Her mother is this like super high-powered venture capitalist which is, you know, the people who are in charge of giving money to start-ups in Silicon Valley. And so, her mother's expectations and the expectations sort of the history of her family which goes back to the Japanese American internment where her, you know, her family was sent to internment camps had to sell their property which was quite common just for pennies on the dollar. Because they had two or three weeks to get their, you know, there would be an announcement, all right, this community is going to be sent to a camp in three weeks. Like, but no one knew when that was going to happen until the announcement went up and then they would have two or three weeks to just sell everything or find someone to take care of everything. So, this happened to her family. They had to sell everything and then after they came back from the camps they worked and worked and worked and earned it all back and bought it all back. So, sort of the pressure of this history is on her shoulders and she just can't seem to live up to any of that. And plus this sort of the [inaudible] minority thing. Everyone expects, everyone expects her to be kind of killing it at school and everything and she's not. And she sort of finds refuge in her family-owned flower shop which her aunt runs. And she's propelled into action when her mother who is just all about moving on, moving forward, because that's what we do in Silicon Valley, we just look to the future. She wants to sell the flower shop to the very family who sort of cheated them out of it many years ago. ^M00:10:05 And it gets more complicated from there. And there is this like cute Asian boy and they're seen kissing [laughter]. >> Lee Ann Potter: That's great [laughter]. A lot of my favorite characters. That's great. So, as we're thinking about how you found the voices of your characters. I was doing a little research before this to come up with, okay, if I were teaching English, how would I introduce voice to my students? And I found an exercise that I thought was actually pretty good. And it had to do with adjectives. So, this was the activity and I'm going to ask you guys to give me the adjectives that describe your characters. So, the exercise was, if you could describe yourself in three adjectives, what adjectives would they be? And then the second part of that was do that, I guess the pointed question is-- ^M00:11:02 Is this how you talk? So, if I think that I'm this, this, and this, is that how my, do my words reflect that? And so, that's my question for you is what -- isn't that good? >> Misa Sugiura: That's very good. >> Lee Ann Potter: I thought it was really good, too. I was like, I could use that. [Inaudible] jotting down notes for them like yeah, okay we know what you're English students are doing next week. It's good. So, [laughter]. So, how about for Robie? What three adjectives? >> Mitali Perkins: Okay. Well he's very kind. >> Lee Ann Potter: Okay. >> Mitali Perkins: But the beginning of the story he's a little numb. >> Lee Ann Potter: Good word. >> Mitali Perkins: And I would say numb/meek. >> Lee Ann Potter: Okay. >> Mitali Perkins: You know, unable to express the full range of his emotions. >> Lee Ann Potter: Yeah. >> Mitali Perkins: And I, the third adjective is, let's see. I said kind, I said meek, the third would be that he is-- ^M00:11:57 ^M00:12:02 Passionate about justice. Yeah. I think he's passionate about being fair. Things being fair and things being right. >> Lee Ann Potter: That's good, that's really good. Okay. And I'm going to come back to a question about the way you said at the beginning and then at the end so it worked out. >> Mitali Perkins: Okay, yeah. >> Lee Ann Potter: So, it's coming. >> Mitali Perkins: Right. >> Lee Ann Potter: So, Misa, how about for CJ? >> Misa Sugiura: So, I think she would describe herself as loyal and I think she sees herself also as, she sees herself as compassionate. >> Lee Ann Potter: Okay. >> Misa Sugiura: And, gosh. >> Lee Ann Potter: It's hard because they're complicated. >> Misa Sugiura: I know [laughter]. >> Lee Ann Potter: They change, they change. >> Misa Sugiura: Yeah, right, yeah. So, in the beginning like loyal, compassionate, and or like a good friend. I don't know if that goes with compassionate. >> Lee Ann Potter: No, that's good. >> Misa Sugiura: Yeah. And determined. >> Lee Ann Potter: Okay. Very good. And then how about Kat. >> Mitali Perkins: Kat. I have two characters, as I've said. Kat would be fierce, very private, and, let's see, how do you say, like solitary, like self- reliance. Fierce, private, and self-reliant. >> Lee Ann Potter: Awesome. Okay. So, how does someone who is fierce, private, and self-reliant become good friends with someone who is kind -- >> Mitali Perkins: Yeah. >> Lee Ann Poter: Numb, and passionate about justice? >> Mitali Perkins: Right. One of my favorite things was writing a friendship between a guy and a girl. I have really good friends who are guys and that didn't have to have that romantic edge to it. So, I really, I loved that in my book I was able to have their friendship be the crux of what lead to their healing. I think they needed each other, particularly because of those differences. Robie needed to step up and be fierce and be self-reliant. And be protective of himself. And I think Kat needed to grow in her heart of kindness. >> Lee Ann Potter: Yeah. >> Mitali Perkins: Her passion for justice. I think in that way their opposites led to the fact that they become a very, their friendship itself becomes the reason why they're able to move forward. So, both of the fact that they're so opposite. Yeah, but I had to write two characters which was quite challenging but fun. >> Lee Ann Potter: Yeah. Now it's good and it makes me wonder a little bit about how, I guess, the relationship between our own voice and the voices we're listening to. And how the voices we listen to influence our own voice. So, in your novel, Misa, who's voice is CJ listening to? >> Misa Sugiura: My gosh [laughter]. It takes a while for her to really hear her own voice, right? >> Lee Ann Potter: Because there's so many other voices, right? >> Misa Sugiura: Yes. So, for sure it's her mother's voice and just so that, you know, people are always like, so who are you? And CJ's mom -- I'm CJ's mom, the story went, like I'm CJ and I'm also her mom, but like [laughter], yeah, it's the mother who has been just trying and trying and trying to get CJ to be a success. And she's feeling really ashamed of not having lived up to that. Another voice is her aunt who is the counterbalance, the counterpoint to her mom saying, just the world is full of love and romance and just be yourself and try to look for what's beautiful. And I think she's been coached to value her mother's voice more than her aunt's voice for quite a long time because her mother's such a strong personality. And, yeah, so you know, and then society's place, too just the expectations of her. >> Lee Ann Potter: And her location, too, maybe. >> Misa Sugiura: Yes, yes, the location. It's just crazy. It's all about, I mean maybe even here like Metro D.C. area I would imagine is pretty achievement-oriented. I -- >> Lee Ann Potter: Yeah [laughter]. >> Misa Sugiura: Yes [laughter]. Yeah. I wanted to write about that a little bit, too. >> Lee Ann Potter: I loved what you said about being both the voice of CJ and the voice of her mom. Because as authors, do you hear your own voice in the novels you write? And how do you, or do you find yourself listening to other voices as you're writing the voices of your characters? >> Mitali Perkins: I think voice is one of the beauties of your novel. And I just felt like I could hear your voice because there's such humor in CJ's internal voice so it made me want to get to know you better. She's as funny as CJ. I want to get to know her. I think essentially all my characters are me. I know that sounds really self-absorbed but [laughter] that's the voice that I have to give the world and so, but of course my sons like Robie are adopted and so I did a lot of listening to adoptees. I am not adopted. I had the ethnic laws. When you're an immigrant you lose that piece and how Bengali am I? When people see me as South Asian but not Bengali and then some people just say I'm brown. So, when you immigrate there's always that ethnic loss. And I could do that part for him but when it came to the adoptee loss I had to listen to lots of voices during that season of research and especially my own two beloved little Robies. So, in a way, Robie's the character that probably the two people on earth, well may two of five people on earth that I love the most. ^M00:17:50 ^M00:17:56 >>Misa Sugiura: I'm sorry, I was so wrapped up in your answer. What was the question? I was lost [laughter] -- >> Lee Ann Potter: I was asking about your own voice and when you're writing or when you read what you've written. Is your voice there? >> Misa Sugiura: Okay. Yes. I actually don't think I'm as funny in person as CJ because I'm the person who thinks of the jokes afterwards. Right? Like, I'm not fast on my feet. So, that's why I love to write because I can sort of. I feel like I have plenty inside, it just doesn't always come out. So, this is where I just get to unleash and be snarky and sort of snappy, you know. >> Mitali Perkins: Snarky and snappy. >> Misa Sugiura: And let's see, yeah, and the, like for example, her mother, Mimi who, okay here's a little clue for everybody. Misa, Mimi was my father's nickname for me so that's why I gave her that nickname. She's always saying things like, you know, you can do better, you just have to like want it, you just have to have a vision, you just have to be motivated. And that's sort of the worst is not really fair but that's my voice. That's the things I always want to say to my son [laughter] who is tired of hearing it. So -- >> Lee Ann Potter: So, when he reads your novel will he hear your voice in that novel? >> Misa Sugiura: He absolutely. He'll be like, my God, mom [laughter]. >> Lee Ann Potter: You see that's good. That's a real self awareness thing, right? >> Misa Sugiura: Yeah, in fact, some of the arguments CJ has with her mom are like verbatim the same arguments that I had with my son, so. >> Lee Ann Potter: That's great. >> Misa Sugiura: We write what we know, right? >> Lee Ann Potter: That's good, that's really good. So, you both have talked a little bit about the research that goes into your writing. Can you speak a little bit more about that? About what in writing these two novels in particular, what additional research did you need to do in order to feed these voices so that they could be as authentic as they are. Do you want to start? >> Misa Sugiura: Man, yeah. Yeah, because you had do a lot of research and [inaudible], yeah. So, it was a long, long time ago but I wrote my college thesis about the literature of the Japanese American Internment so the literature that came out of it. So, that like history part was stuff I already knew about. If any of you are interested there's this amazing website called Densho I think like dot org that has interviews and documents and stories and all of the details. So, I did some preliminary research about the internment there because I did address the history and I had to learn a little bit about the ins and outs of purchasing property, and investment banking, and how much money could believably change hands. And I always make sure to touch base with a few teenagers to make sure that my language is all right, that the texts are making sense, that things are believable. And there's a LGBTQ subplot that I really love and my teenage years, being queer in my teenage years is very, very different from being queer today in the Silicon Valley so I always have to touch base with a few queer teens to make sure that this is what happens, this is how people feel. >> Lee Ann Potter: [Inaudible]. >> Misa Sugiura: Yeah. >> Lee Ann Potter: That's good. Good. >> Mitali Perkins: A long time ago there was a book that won the National, or it was nominated for the National Book Award. It was about trafficking in Kolkata and I loved the book. But there was one issue I had by the end of the book. This girl is saved from being trafficked and the character that saves her is called The American. And I mean I have first cousins who work very closely with better Bengali in Kolkata who work an anti trafficking organization. So, it was a beautiful book. Like every book, my books have flaws. Every book has a flaw. But that was a flaw I always wanted to write about. I wanted to highlight the work that people are doing in Kolkata Bengali's to help fight this injustice. But in this book, all my whole career, I've been writing a long time. I've been, I always like to say I've been rejected a long time so I'm still writing my next novel. But I've seen some of these themes and tropes come out in fiction like the outside savior theme that I'm talking about or the theme of, there's just a lot of things that I got to turn, like if you've heard of this word the magical negro theme. Where, like for example, think of Morgan Freeman who pops in a movie and sort of solves the problem and then exits without any back story. So, these sort of things that have bothered me in literature for a long time. So, in this book I got to play with that. I got to have Grandma Vee who was an immigrant from Sierre Leone but instead of just being a magical person who appears and solves the problem we actually get to know her story, her back story and her whole reason why she became a healer. So, and I got to play with the fact that these teens want to go and help these girls get free from trafficking but they actually can't do that because that's not their role. So, that was really fun and so I've done work in Kolkata, I visited those organizations, I've met the girls, like as I've said I've raised two adoptees. I've listened to a ton of adoptee voices. This is probably my most researched of all my novels because I wanted to get that, since I was turning these tropes and themes on their heads I wanted to be sure that there was, the research that backed it up. >> Lee Ann Potter: Yeah. I really, I appreciate what both of you said about your research in terms of your getting to know authentic voices in both cases whether they're authentic voices of people who are present today or voices that are present in primary source materials. And I'm glad you mentioned the Densho group. We're familiar with them at the library. >> Mitali Perkins: Right, yeah. >> Lee Ann Potter: Yeah, great. Well I'm looking at my watch and it's like about a quarter to two and that means it's time for some questions from our audience and I welcome you to use those two microphones. And I love it. Somebody's already jumped up and is ready. And if you want to say your name and then address either Misa or Mitali or both of them, you certainly may. >> Thanks. So, this question's directed to both of you. So, I've noticed online in the book community, at least in terms of publishing within the last year or so there's been a lot more own voices Asian books as well as more read-a-thons targeted towards Asian-made characters. And I was wondering if you two have noticed this shift online or in your own publishing careers. >> Lee Ann Potter: Do you want to? >> Mitali Perkins: Absolutely. Gosh when I started it was, you know, the market won't bear my books. A lot of the rejections that I got probably were because my books were bad. But partly [inaudible] I've gotten better. But partly it's because I'd hear things like well we don't really have that community, that representation in the community. The idea that my books were particularly for Asians readers only as opposed to the wider audience, well the market's been, that miss of the market has been completely exposed as false thanks to a lot of these best-selling books now. I'm so grateful for that [inaudible] for Universe Books and the push back because now my career feels totally different. It's like a dream. I mean, this is your third book, right? >> Misa Sugiura: This is my second. >> Mitali Perkins: Second. So, think for when I started to now, that whole own voices thing. The danger, I think, though is that we have to be really be careful about that own voices hashtag with fiction because unless you're writing memoir all fiction crosses borders. So, just because you're writing about your own culture doesn't give you a free pass to just write without the integrity of your research that you need to do. It doesn't give you that, just because I'm my own voice. I'm Bengali so I can write whatever I want. And we've seen problems with that. Where people have made mistakes in their own. But as I said before, every one of us is flawed. All our books are going to be flawed but all fiction crosses borders or its memoir. So, in a sense, no fiction is own voices. So, I balance that with gratitude for the movement that's widened the market with a little bit of wisdom that fiction is going to be flawed and it's going to cross borders but we can still do better. >> Thank you. >> Lee Ann Potter: Did you want to? >> Misa Sugiura: No. I, what she said, right [laughter]? >> Lee Ann Potter: That was great. Very good. Thank you. All right. How about one over here? We'll just alternate. Yes. >> Noah: Hi, Noah. >> Lee Ann Potter: Hi Noah. >> Noah: And my question is just how do you come up with the titles for your books [laughter]? >> Lee Ann Potter: Good question. >> Mitali Perkins: This was your last line. >> Misa Sugiura: Mine was my last line, [multiple speakers] yes. And I actually, I don't remember if I wrote the, if I wrote the last line first or if I wrote the title of the novel first. Yeah. So, before, let's see my very first title for this book was something like "Nothing Will Change" or something [laughter]. >> Lee Ann Potter: "Nothing Ever Changes". >> Misa Sugiura: It's not quite as, or things, it was similar theme but not as positive [laughter]. But, and actually for my first book I started off with a title that my editor didn't like. ^M00:27:58 And so, she's like, can you think of something else? And I like made a list of like a hundred different titles and I picked my top eight and I gave them to her. She's like let's just make it this. And it was, it's not like it's a secret which was something someone says in the book. >> Lee Ann Potter: Yeah. >> Misa Sugiura: So. >> Lee Ann Potter: Yeah. No, I think that's great. It's actually making me think wouldn't that be kind of a fun twitter thing. Like titles of books -- >> Mitali Perkins: Titles. >> Lee Ann Potter: That could've been? >> Mitali Perkins: Could've been. Yeah [laughter] [inaudible]. So, I'm terrible at titles, terrible. Thankfully for my editors, the book before this was called You Bring the Distant Near and that's more memoir than any of my books I've written. And the original title was terrible that was called "Borderlines". How boring. So, but there's a poet called Rabindranath Tagore who won the Nobel Prize from Bengal and he's written tons of poems. So, my editor said, I'll come up with something better Mitali. So, she went away from the weekend. She read thousands of poems he's written. She read probably about twenty of them. And she said, I've got the title and she came back to me and said, I think we should call it You Bring the Distant Near. Now my heart skipped a beat because my husband was the first non-Bengali to enter the family. So, at our wedding my grandfather back in Kolkata sent us a poem to be read in our wedding to welcome him. And that poem was You Bring the Distant Near. >> Misa Sugiura: Okay. You got goosebumps. >> Mitali Perkins: Yeah. >> Lee Ann Potter: Great. >> Mitali Perkins: So, Forward Me Back To You was an attempt to match You Bring the Distant Near Forward Me Back To You but it's really about two teens who love the movies. They both, that's their shared thing, they love superhero movies. And, you know, when you can forward a movie but you can't do that with real life. You can't fast forward, you can't press rewind so it was a little play on that. But that's, thanks for that question because, yeah, titles we should have a app, title generator app. I would pay a lot of money for a good title generator app. >> Lee Ann Potter: Well Mitali on your website don't you have that quote front and center? >> Mitali Perkins: Yes, You Bring the Distant Near. >> Lee Ann Potter: Look at her website. >> Mitali Perkins: Yeah. >> Lee Ann Potter: It's front and center. It's a great question. >> Mitali Perkins: Yes. >> Lee Ann Potter: Outstanding. >> Mitali Perkins: Thank you. >> Lee Ann Potter: All right. Next question. >> Shrina: Hi, so my name is Shrina [assumed spelling]. And I'm actually Bengali myself, so -- >> Mitali Perkins: Yeah. >> Shrina: Yeah, right? >> Mitali Perkins: [Inaudible]. >> Shrina: [Inaudible]. >> Mitali Perkins. Great. So, I said do you still speak Bangla and she came through. Good Job. >> Shrina: Yeah [laughter]. I actually improved a lot. So, my question is, short story about me. When I was in elementary school I used to be bullied for being Indian. And I was just wondering like in both of your stories do you see that sort of discrimination happen to your characters? Because to me, being Bengali and being Indian since I am a second-generation immigrant, like my parents immigrated here, it sometimes feels hard to look back at my family and try connect with them when I, you know, live in America. It's hard to feel emotionally-connected to them and I, like, bullied. >> Mitali Perkins: Well, first of all, I'm so sorry [laughter] that you had to experience that. CJ is Asian in a community with a lot of Asian Americans. So, in this book I didn't really talk about that. There's like, there's a moment where someone says something but she manages to fight back. My first book actually addresses that idea head on where it's not outright bullying but a lot of microaggressions like, you know, they're dancing to Beach Boys "California Girls". And she, the Midwest farmer's daughter's rude, you know, and she's like, yeah. And kids are like, why? You don't look like a Midwest farmer's daughter like that kind of thing. But I don't know. Yeah. So, I think -- >> Misa Sugiura: Yes. >> Mitali Perkins: Yeah, but your book is much more [inaudible]. >> Misa Sugiura: I love that she was [inaudible] but she had a very proud ethnic identity. So, yeah, I moved to California in the seventh grade and it was an all-born-in-the-USA, all-white school. And so, the principal introduced me to the school at once, in front of the whole school in the assembly and said, we have a new student from Asia. Make her feel welcome, you know, and, you know, my gosh. Nobody talked to me for so, like for weeks and weeks and I was trying desperately to fit in. I talk about the hyphenated life. You know how you see yourself as Bengali-American. And your question expressed both the disconnect from the American side and the disconnect from the Bengali side, right? >> Right. >> Mitali Perkins: So, these years that you're in are the toughest. Because you're trying to learn that, what we call code-switching. So, when you're with your grandma, your dedo [phonetic], or your nane [phonetic], you're totally leaning into your Bengali side and you're becoming, you're trying, striving for cultural fluency. But when you're with your American friends you're like, hey yeah, what's going on with, well what's -- I don't know, I'm so unhip now [laughter]. My kids are old. But, yeah, you know, you're talking you just -- American pop culture, right? But you're learning both languages. You're learning both cultures and even though it's hard and some of you getting rejection here and you're feeling like you don't fit in there, that skill that you're learning around your hyphen, that code-switching skill, that's going to last you a lifetime. You're going to be able to cross borders so fluidly for the rest of your life beyond anyone who doesn't have a hyphen. So, if you can survive, because at this firing, let's say it's not firing. The only people who reached out to me after that seventh grade was this group of seventh grade boys, five of them, and they're really nerds I could tell. But they walked up to me and they were nervous and they said, hey we want you to eat lunch with us. And I was like, what? Seventh grade boys? Well it turns out these were the trekkies of the school and so there were five of them. They acted out the show the next day after. So, there was one character that was missing and that was Lieutenant Uhura [laughter]. And they said, would you be our Uhura? That was how crazy it was. So, your code-switching. I can see it. You're doing a great job. You're bumless, spot on, following through on that, keep pushing for both fluency but especially that code-switching dance you're doing. That's going to serve you. It's people who don't do that, I think, that are stunted. The more borders you're crossing now the harder it is, the better it's going to be. So, survive. Hang in there. It's going to pay off [applause]. >> Lee Ann Potter: Yeah [laughter]. All right. >> Misa Sugiura: I just want to add to that. I just think this whole idea of like being bicultural is often seen, especially by people who are like on one side as an either or situation. And, yeah, if I think about it as both and, right? You can be both. You don't have to be one or the other so. >> Lee Ann Potter: Excellent. All right. Next question. >> My question is actually an excellent piggy back to that. Because I was thinking a lot about Misa, your book It's Not Like It's a Secret and how your characters always have such intersectionality in their identifies and it wasn't just about her being gay. It wasn't just about her being Asian. It was about a whole big slew of things. And so, I was curious about how you select the issues, so to speak, for your characters. >> Misa Sugiura: I don't know. I think it's, they just happen. I mean, if I wanted to write -- well I've decided to focus on an Asian-queer character, mostly because when I decided to write a book I was just reading and reading and all the Asian characters were straight and all the queer characters were white. So, that's where that came from. I was like, there needs to be a book where there's someone's both. And that's where that voice came from. And I don't think you can write a book about anything, even being white, without somehow, somewhere addressing that issue, even if it's just a line or a paragraph somewhere. >> Lee Ann Potter: Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Lee Ann Potter: All right. On this side. >> Yes. It seems to me the process of writing is well-suited to being an introvert but all the research that you describe sounds like a really extroverted thing. And do you actually have that dilemma? Are you like, how do you deal with the side that's more uncomfortable like I love being by myself but I have to go out and talk to all these people [laughter]. Or, you know, I love to talking to people but I put myself in this little dark room to get it all down on paper. >> Misa Sugiura: Right. How many of you are really introverted in the room? So, you replenish by being along, right? Is that true for you? >> For sure. >> Misa Sugiura: Yeah, yeah. That is such, this festival. I go to a lot of these conferences and festivals and being down there with all those, I called it the psychic streak, of all the people that are -- that's hard as an introvert. I'm very, very introverted. But I also love people. And I think being an introvert doesn't let you off the hook for being in relationships with people and loving people. So, it's a question of balance and, you know, self-care. And so, I think we're never off the hook to really be in deep relationships with people. So, that's, you know, that's a non-negotiable but I do reply. Like in the hotel room I had to be, my first appointment was 12 this morning, I was like 11:20 I can stay in my hotel room until [inaudible]. So, that's definitely the artistic life. But I once had, I heard Mary Oliver speak who's a poet. We just recently lost her. I asked her that question from the floor. I said, you know, how does a poet, my question was more about justice. How does a poet engage with justice if you're spending all these writing and there's always hungry people in the world. How do you justify that? And she talked about the role of art and bringing change into the human heart. And you gotta believe that. You have to have that big vision that what you're writing is going to matter in the world when it comes to bringing justice and love. >> Lee Ann Potter: You're all done? Anything? >> Mitali Perkins: Me? [Laughter] Sorry. I was just so wrapped. ^M00:37:58 >> Lee Ann Potter: Introverted. Extroverted [laughter]. >> Mitali Perkins: Yeah. I think that first phone call, email's not so hard, that first phone call is really tough but I, you know, find that going out there with a purpose, there's things I really want to find out. I already have my questions all set to go, right? I spend a lot of time writing questions. So, it's like I've got a script. And people are always love to talk about themselves. Answer your question. >> Lee Ann Potter: Well they're flattered. >> Mitali Perkins: Yes, exactly. So, I find that once you sit down and you've got the questions it kind of goes from there. So, it's easier for me that way. >> Thank you. >> Lee Ann Potter: Thank you. Yes. >> Joanna: Hi. I'm Joanna [assumed spelling]. Did you guys write as teens? >> Misa Sugiura: I did not. I didn't think I had anything to say. So, I'm so amazed by all of you. >> Mitali Perkins: That's bad. >> Misa Sugiura: Yeah, but, yeah, well anyway, but now I do. >> Mitali Perkins: I wrote like a crazy person. I was always scribbling in journals and my journals were always secret and, you know, I had a very much like a Mimi-like mom. I hate to generalize but she was classic Bengali-immigrant mom so she wanted to know what I was writing about. So, always guarding my, but I wrote like crazy. I had pink paper. I am old people so I wrote on a typewriter when I was a teenager which really was the [click, click, click] sound. Yeah. So, I wrote all the time on my old typewriter. Pink faded pink paper and just poems and stories constantly. >> Did you have any mentors or some kind of education to help you further? >> Misa Sugiura: No, I just read like crazy. I was such an avid reader I would go to the library. My relaxation to this day, unfortunately, is reading and eating at the same time [laughter] by myself. So bad. It's like really working on that vice. But so, I did that all the time. I just read. And I reread. If you think of a book that you reread, that book's going to go deep, right? So, I read [inaudible] were the writers that I reread. >> Yeah. >> Misa Sugiura: So, I get constantly went to the library all the time and just read like a crazy person and wrote. >> Yeah, thank you. >> I just want to say Google is actually, I mean, I Googled how to write a book. That's what [laughter]. You can do it that way. >> Lee Ann Potter: You, too, can do that. And I'm sorry to say that our time is up but I see two young ladies at the mics. And so, I'm going to say that we're going to wrap this up, we're all going to applaud, and if you two want to come up and ask your questions that would be great. And the rest of you enjoy the rest of the book festival. Thank you again for being here. Thank you again Mitali and Misa, really. ^M00:40:38 ^E00:40:42