I grew up with 'Cinderella.' So that was my go-to Disney film, definitely. It was princess-related, and coming from a smaller area in Illinois and wanting to do something greater than myself in Broadway, that was a film that I could really relate to.

I think God must have had something in mind for me that was not on my radar when I first started out in New York. Back then, doing animated voices meant your career was done - it was looked down upon.

We had put our son into a little preschool in Los Angeles, and it was just not going well, so we brought him back home. We had every intention of putting him back into a traditional school setting, but we just really couldn't find the right match for him. And then we moved to Georgia and again couldn't find the right match.

I can't sing, perform, do anything apart from Christ. I have no power or strength of my own.

Acting just didn't seem like a viable option. I didn't have any connections in the industry, and I had little support from my family. Also, there just weren't a lot of Asian-Americans on TV or in the movies.

With the crime novels, it's delightful to have protagonists I can revisit in book after book. It's like having a fictitious family.

I was given the opportunity to write the kind of book that I wanted to write, rather than one that catalogues where I sang and what I sang and what I wore. I wanted to write a book about an American family, the family that has produced me. The longer I live, the more I realise the incredible support and love we were given as children.

Family always gonna be there.