Author Interview with Xiran Jay Zhao, Out Now!!

Hello all you lovely people! Isabelle Knight back here again with another blog post that I am writing just so I can procrastinate and not have to dive into my utterly hectic Island Keepers! Which, surprise, I actually plan to traditionally publish!!

So, I recently read an amazing middle-grade novel, Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor which is such a fun and wild book with amazing characters that I, personally, really related to! I came across this book while I was looking for books with Chinese protagonists or books with Chinese culture in them, and I am so glad I picked it up!!! In fact, I loved the book so much that I actually reached out to the author, Xiran Jay Zhao, to do an interview!!

And by reached out to the author, I mean had to email their publicist and spent half an hour trying to sound formal and professional.

But it worked out, and now the video interview has been posted on YouTube, where you can join me and Xiran for a chat about writing, Chinese culture, and unpredictable morally gray characters!!! And you can watch it here! If the embed below doesn’t work, use the link in the previous sentence!

It was absolutely amazing to be able to speak with Xiran and discuss a lot of fun things, like how they got started in writing, how they wrote Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor, and how morally gray characters can be incredibly unpredictable (in a good way!)!

Again, I had to get up pretty early to do this interview, and I didn’t get ANY sleep beforehand (curse you, mosquito that kept me up all night!!), so my brain was a little… well, scatterbrained during the interview. I did forget what I was supposed to say and lose my train of thought a LIIIITTLE bit during the interview… but you guys don’t mind that, right? 🙂

So, yeah! Go check out that interview, along with Xiran’s books!!! Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor is such a fun middle-grade novel that everyone will enjoy! (seriously, you’re in for a wild ride with that book!)

Thank you so much for reading, and I shall see you again in the next post!!!!

Isabelle