Gene Luen Yang

For 'American Born Chinese,' my first graphic novel with First Second Books, I did mostly 'memory' research. It's fiction, but I pulled heavily from my own childhood. ”

A lot of Asians and Asian-Americans have liver problems. If you basically ask anybody who is Asian, they or one of their relatives will have some sort of a liver issue, and the liver actually falls into the jurisdiction of the gastroenterologist. ”

I grew up in a religious community, and like everyone, I went through a period of doubt and later made a conscious choice to embrace the faith of my childhood. ”

I have a fairly limited drawing style. I'm not like my friend Derek Kirk Kim, who can pretty much change his style at will. My drawing style can handle some of my stories, but not all of them. ”

I grew up with an Apple 2E - I had a deep, emotional attachment to that machine - and I loved doodling. ”

I would hope that maybe math teachers could use 'Prime Baby' as a way of establishing an emotional connection between students and numbers. ”

The premise of 'Secret Coders' is reminiscent of 'Harry Potter.' An intrepid band of tweens stumbles upon a secret school, only instead of teaching magic, the school teaches coding. ”

During the Cultural Revolution, the communists came in, and what they wanted to do was eradicate all sense of traditional Chinese culture. ”

I talk about religion because it's one of the ways human beings find power and belonging. Religion is more than just that - I think faith traditions give us ways to talk about experiences of the numinous, too - but power and belonging are a big part of it. ”

We have to allow ourselves the freedom to make mistakes, including cultural mistakes, in our first drafts. I believe it's okay to get cultural details wrong in your first draft. It's okay if stereotypes emerge. It just means that your experience is limited, that you're human. ”