Coming out of the closet doesn't always mean liberation.

While I was growing up in Flushing, Queens, we socialized exclusively with other Chinese immigrants. I was forbidden to make contact with nonapproved, non-Chinese peers outside school. That was fine with me.

Growing up in America, I experienced two puberties. The first opened me up to the possibilities of adulthood. The second reinforced that for someone like me - an immigrant, a minority, an Asian-American - there were limits.

Sour Heart' is a collection of seven linked short stories narrated by young Chinese-American girls living in New York City in the '90s. It's exceptionally hard to describe what I've written without sounding delusional or boring, so I'll just say they are stories about growing up and the pleasures and agonies of having a family, a body, and a home.

I was born into a poor family but my family's good. I'm good and I'm going to do something great.

When I used to leave behind my wife and kids and go into training camp for nine weeks at a time, I felt it, especially if you're having young children and leaving them literally within weeks of them being born.

I want children to be glued to interactive books that encourage singing and dancing. I feel when kids work together it brings about a different energy.

A family is really a union of two separate entities. When you get married, you are marrying one family into another.