Jean Chen Ho, FIONA AND JANE
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[0:41]Jean Chen-Hoe is the author of Fiona and Jane.
[0:44]She is a doctoral candidate in creative writing and literature at the University of Southern
[0:48]California, where she is a Dorn's life fellow in fiction.
[0:52]Jean has an MFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and her writing has been
[0:56]published in the Georgia Review, GQ, Harper's Bazaar, Guernica, The Rumpus, Apigee,
[1:01]McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and others.
[1:04]She was born in Taiwan, grew up in Southern California, and lives in Los Angeles.
[1:07]Welcome, Jean.
[1:08]Thank you so much for coming, and moms don't have time to read books, to discuss Fiona
[1:13]and Jane.
[1:14]Hi, Zivi.
[1:15]It's so nice to be here.
[1:16]Thanks for having me.
[1:17]And thanks for giving me the world news update.
[1:19]I will be checking in with you for my update.
[1:23]No one.
[1:24]Oh, my gosh, imagine.
[1:26]Oh, the world is so crazy.
[1:28]Okay.
[1:29]Anyway, Fiona and Jane, let's talk about this.
[1:31]Fiona, we go into this setting.
[1:35]We have a secret come out right away.
[1:37]There is something with her dad.
[1:39]It has ripples on the rest of the story.
[1:42]Things aren't what they seem necessarily.
[1:45]And as a young woman, she has to figure out sort of how to deal with everything.
[1:49]And then, of course, we have her friend and her story and how everything intersects.
[1:53]How did you come up with this?
[1:54]Why these characters?
[1:56]Why you?
[1:57]Give me the whole story.
[1:58]Tell me the whole story.
[1:59]Yeah.
[2:00]I mean, before I started working on this book, or I knew that I was working on a book,
[2:05]I was just writing short stories, trying stuff out.
[2:08]And I had always been interested in writing stories about friendship between women and
[2:13]girls.
[2:15]And I think before I started working on this project, I was sort of playing around with
[2:22]just thinking about how Asian American women relate to one another.
[2:26]And because I am from Southern California, I also found that most of my stories were set
[2:31]in LA.
[2:33]And so eventually, as I was trying to write these kinds of stories or maybe like the
[2:38]earth stories of Fiona and Jane, I was moving toward the structure of having a book
[2:45]that was told in two voices.
[2:46]So Fiona and Jane is told in alternating voices.
[2:51]There are first person stories told from Jane's point of view.
[2:54]And then there are third person stories told from Fiona's point of view.
[2:58]And you know, as I was working on the project, I also found that I wanted to play with
[3:03]different eras of their friendship.
[3:06]And so there's the first story that you mentioned, that's when Jane is a senior in high
[3:11]school.
[3:12]She's just turned 18.
[3:15]The book moves into the past and into the future.
[3:18]But by the last story, these women are almost turning 40.
[3:23]So it really encompasses about more than 20 years of their friendship.
[3:28]And I was really interested in just exploring what a long friendship could look like.
[3:33]Do you have a friend like this that you kind of based it in?
[3:37]It's not just one friend.
[3:38]I have a group of friends who I'm still really close to from high school.
[3:42]So Fiona and Jane had been friends since the second grade.
[3:46]So my group of friends, we don't go back that far.
[3:49]But, you know, we probably met in junior high, so we grew up together.
[3:55]And I definitely drew, if not from the particular circumstances of our friendship from
[4:00]those.
[4:01]I definitely did draw inspiration, however, from just sort of the emotional ups and downs
[4:07]that we went through.
[4:08]Wow.
[4:09]There is nothing like old friends.
[4:10]That is for sure.
[4:12]And did you realize you loved writing short stories?
[4:15]Like how did that happen?
[4:16]And was that always the genre that you were naturally attracted to from the beginning?
[4:20]I think that I had always loved reading short stories.
[4:24]So you know, one of my favorite story collections of all time is Dubliners by James Joyce.
[4:30]And you know, that collection is sort of loosely linked just around the city of Dublin.
[4:37]So you find all these characters that are in the city.
[4:41]And then another one is lost in the city by European Jones.
[4:44]So I think that I had always been too intimidated to say, like, I'm writing a novel.
[4:50]You know, I am working on a novel now.
[4:52]And so I'm no longer as afraid to say that.
[4:56]But I think when I was starting out, when I was in my, I just wanted to try short pieces
[5:01]and just try to figure out how to make a thing that was, you know, 25 pages, 30 pages,
[5:09]compelling as I possibly could.
[5:12]And, you know, as I was working on Fiona and Jane, the first story that I finished in the book
[5:19]was the movers.
[5:20]And that story comes later in the book chronologically.
[5:24]The women are in their 30s.
[5:26]But after I finished that story, I found that I wasn't done with these characters yet.
[5:29]I wanted to know more about them.
[5:31]I wanted to know, like at that point, I didn't know about their childhood.
[5:35]I hadn't discovered, you know, this, like, family secret that Jane discovers about her dad.
[5:41]So I was just really compelled to write and do these characters and find out more about them.
[5:46]And that's where the project began.
[5:49]Interesting.
[5:50]What about the piano teacher?
[5:53]Yeah.
[5:54]What about her?
[5:55]So the piano teacher starts this sort of introspective look into sexuality and relationships.
[6:02]And, you know, what do we think about this coming from the piano teacher herself?
[6:07]What do I, like, what happens with piano lessons these days?
[6:11]You know, I don't know.
[6:14]My kids quit guitar now, but I don't know.
[6:16]Anyway, tell me about that character and how that piece of the puzzle unraveled in that way.
[6:21]Yeah.
[6:22]So this is in the first story for your listeners who haven't read the book yet.
[6:27]So Jane starts having a little crush on her piano teacher.
[6:32]So Jane is 18, this piano teacher is a grad student.
[6:36]So she's in her 20.
[6:37]So she's a little older, but, you know, they have a little flirtation.
[6:42]And I think that there were, like, multiple things going into the creation of this character.
[6:48]First of all, if you're an Asian-American kid growing up at the time that I did in the 80s and 90s,
[6:56]one of the things that you probably did was you had to take piano lessons.
[7:00]I don't know why this is a thing, but I also had to take piano lessons.
[7:05]Okay.
[7:06]Do you have immigrant Asian parents?
[7:08]I don't, I don't.
[7:10]But I felt like everybody at my school had to take piano.
[7:14]I feel like it was like, yeah.
[7:15]Why are there such a thing?
[7:16]In fact, I actually took it at the school.
[7:17]So maybe it was part of my curriculum, although I feel like it was just me on this random
[7:21]platform above the gym and the piano teacher.
[7:23]Well, I think I'm going to have to call my mom and find out, like,
[7:27]why was I up there on like 9M floor or whatever?
[7:31]Anyway, was it like a replacement for PE?
[7:34]Because I mean, I would have actually loved that.
[7:36]I hate it.
[7:38]I didn't like, because we had to like change into it.
[7:40]We used to have to wear these, like, I can't even discuss these, like,
[7:43]blimmers under our uniform.
[7:44]This is what I was in lower school.
[7:46]Anyway, it's like a whole thing.
[7:47]And then like change it to shorts.
[7:49]Okay, so you also had to take piano lessons.
[7:51]Yeah, so maybe it was just, I don't know, but you said that your kids,
[7:56]you're not making them go through this torture.
[7:58]Well, my older kids, I did.
[8:00]And honestly, I don't think I could handle hearing the practice.
[8:05]Before kids, if it was the same quality level as my older kids,
[8:10]they would not be ashamed to admit it.
[8:11]We went to like this big piano.
[8:13]I'm sorry, it's totally off topic of your buck, but they like didn't practice enough
[8:17]and we had to get to this bigger side.
[8:19]I'll look like a bunch of our family friends.
[8:21]And like, everybody's kids got up and we're like,
[8:23]just like, playing these things.
[8:25]Like, I guess two fingers was like, played the Batman theme song.
[8:30]Like, oh my God.
[8:32]I was just sitting there like, oh my God, like, let the floor open up.
[8:35]Obviously, I didn't have my kids practice enough.
[8:37]So that's hilarious.
[8:40]Oh my God, I feel like I've had like recurring nightmares or I used to have recurring
[8:45]nightmares of like going to a piano, I had to take piano lessons.
[8:49]So that I would have nightmares of going to the piano recital and all of a sudden realizing
[8:55]that I had not practiced enough and I had forgotten everything and just making a complete
[9:02]full of myself on the recital stage.
[9:04]So anyway, all of which to say, you know, I wanted to play with this idea of a kid who
[9:11]has taken piano lessons, which to me felt like a very quintessential Asian American
[9:18]immigrant kid experience, but maybe I was wrong.
[9:21]And maybe it's just like everybody had to go through that torturous experience.
[9:26]And then I wanted to sort of like subvert that idea of like this like,
[9:31]piano virtuoso, you know, and have Jane start to have this like romantic attraction to her
[9:40]piano teacher. And you know, like I remember, I didn't think of it this way when I was a kid,
[9:48]but there's something like there is something romantic about learning how to play the piano
[9:53]because, you know, the teacher is sitting right next to you, you know, they're showing you how to
[9:58]to place your fingers. I don't know.
[10:00]It's just, maybe as an adult, I'm like mapping that onto the experience.
[10:05]But yeah, so she has a little crush on this young woman.
[10:10]And at the same time, she, in that story, you know, she goes to visit her dad and he actually
[10:17]comes out of the closet. And it's like this, I don't know if that, I mean, it's,
[10:21]it's okay that that's like the reveal that happens in the story. But I wanted to sort of set up
[10:26]those two, like, James relationship to her dad. And then her relationship to her
[10:32]pan of teacher as, you know, a point of tension. Yeah. I love that. It also raises this whole,
[10:38]like, is it is sexuality learned inherited in your DNA from, you know, it just raises all that
[10:47]good stuff. All that conversation, you know, yeah. So did you grow up in LA and are you there? Do
[10:52]you live there now? I am. Yeah, I am here now. So I grew up, I didn't grow up in LA proper. I
[10:58]grew up in the suburbs. So my parents still live there and I, you know, go and have dinner with them
[11:05]like almost every week, you know, that was interrupted sadly in the last couple of years by the
[11:11]pandemic. But now, you know, we're vaccinated and we're back to having our weekly Sunday dinners.
[11:18]So yeah, I was just there until two days ago. So oh, well, we could have done this out there.
[11:24]Are you in New York or New York now? But I'm out there a lot. My husband's work is mostly there.
[11:31]So anyway, so tell me about your process when you're writing. Like, is it where I'm seeing you
[11:36]now? Is that where you like to write? Do you like to go outside or do you like what's your,
[11:40]what times do you like to write? What's your whole thing? Yeah. I mean, I'm sitting on my
[11:44]desk. You can see that I have this giant plant behind me. I gosh, my process is that when I'm in a
[11:53]good groove, I'll wake up early in the morning. I'm a morning writer and then I'll start in my notebook
[11:59]just to sort of like create a bridge between my dream brain and then my like a live brain.
[12:06]Because so I don't like to go straight to the computer when I start working just because I feel like
[12:11]I want to write long hand to sort of get those juicy dream state ideas going. And then I'll
[12:20]drink coffee and then I'll go to my computer and I'll write for an hour. Like I only make myself
[12:25]write for an hour. And then, you know, most times I'll go over an hour. But once I do an hour,
[12:32]I feel like I've done my duty for the day. It's very low stakes.
[12:36]It's very low stakes. So, you know, I know that some writers they have like a work count goal if
[12:45]they're working on a project. I can't do that just because for whatever reason, it doesn't work for me.
[12:51]So instead of having a work count, I go by time and like number of days. So I try to write like I
[13:00]said like right for one hour a day. And then because it's so low stakes, I often will go longer
[13:06]than that. And then the other really important thing is that I don't look at my emails or check my
[13:12]phone messages before 11 o'clock or noon if I'm being really good. So, wow, you know, because once
[13:19]I start looking at Instagram or checking my messages, it's all over. Like, I'll just be on my phone
[13:26]for two hours. And I don't even know where the time went. So that's definitely a restriction
[13:31]I have to put on myself in the morning. Wow. Once I went till like nine. And I thought that was a huge
[13:36]victory. And I also like missed something I needed before then. So I was like, I can't do this.
[13:44]This is ridiculous. Yeah. I mean, this is this is only when I'm in a good writing group, you know,
[13:50]yeah. So it's not like a like, you know, like I've been doing book publicity for Fiona and Jane
[13:55]for the last, you know, month and a half. So I have not been writing. I have been I have been
[14:01]waking up and checking for emails and messages from my team like every day. So first thing
[14:07]when I wake up. So I'm not I'm not being that virtuous right now. Have you done any in person
[14:14]things or all virtual? Mostly virtual. I've done a couple of in person things. One was outdoors.
[14:22]And so that was really nice to, you know, just hang out with people and, you know, we had to
[14:28]be vaccinated. And then one was indoors at a bookstore at my local indie here in LA. And everybody
[14:34]was masked. And I don't know. I was a little bit nervous about the indoor event. To be honest,
[14:42]but I was also excited. And, you know, now I'm really glad that that happened because, you know,
[14:50]doing a virtual event is really wonderful because it's much more accessible for people in other
[14:55]places. But there's nothing like an in person event, you know, there's just that energy in the room.
[15:03]So that was really pleasant. Tell me more about your novel. Well, I am working. So I'm working on
[15:10]the second book. It's a novel. It'll be really different from Fiona and Jane. It's part of it will
[15:16]be set in the 19th century. So it is it is a very like much more research book than Fiona and Jane
[15:24]is and it's about part of the book is about the formation of Los Angeles Chinatown. And so I've
[15:31]been doing a lot of archival research on how the Chinatown here was founded. And so the Chinatown
[15:39]that stands today is not the original Chinatown because the original neighborhood that the Chinese
[15:46]immigrants lived in in the mid 1900s was destroyed. And then the community moved about a couple
[15:54]of miles north and established this new area. And so even though there are lots of historical
[16:01]records to look at, there's not a lot of voices from Chinese Americans themselves,
[16:07]especially before the turn of the century. And so, you know, there's as you can expect in the
[16:13]annals of history, you know, there are like almost no women. And there's no people of color
[16:21]in the official records. It's all like wealthy land owning white men who are either like writing
[16:28]memoirs or I'm looking at their like business ledgers that have names of their contracted Chinese
[16:35]but it's really interesting to sort of piece together that stuff and also read for what's in the
[16:41]silences. So part of my project is inventing or listening to those voices that are that haven't
[16:48]been recorded and seeing what comes out of there. That must be fascinating. That sounds
[16:53]excited. Yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited about this new project. So when you're not
[16:58]writing for an hour a day, what do you do with rest of the day? Well, today I'm going to get a
[17:07]haircut. It's so funny. My my husband when we got together and I would, you know, we'd be doing
[17:15]our own thing all day or whatever. And I always be like, okay, well, what were you up to? What
[17:18]you do today? And he's like, I hate when people ask me that like, you know, an day when he wasn't
[17:22]working or something. He's like, I don't know. What do I do? What? I don't know. Why does everybody
[17:26]want to know? And I'm like, I'm just being polite. You know, what were you hiding? What are you
[17:31]doing? Where are you going? Exactly. For the rest of the day. Like, what are you paying bills? Like,
[17:36]it's okay. Tell me. I mean, I think mostly I'm reading like I'm working on a book review right
[17:46]now. Oh, and you know, I am also a PhD student. So I'm finishing up my doctorate in literature
[17:53]and creative writing at USC. So I said to graduate. Yes. I mean, I forgot I'm getting like one of
[18:02]the hardest degrees. I mean, I've been out of course work for a few years. So it's just been like
[18:08]very self directed with, you know, my advisors, you know, giving me feedback and stuff. But
[18:15]because I'm not like going to campus anymore, it just sort of feels like, oh, this is another
[18:20]project that's like ongoing and it's been ongoing for years. But I'm such a graduate in a
[18:25]couple of months. So I'll be out of here. Wow. Yeah. I also watch a lot of reality TV. So I mean,
[18:32]I'm just like coming up. There's like a whole range of things that I'm doing. Excellent.
[18:40]Somebody on Instagram put a comment like on something and so they wanted to do a show called
[18:45]Instead of diners, drive-ins, and dives. What did she call it? Like books, beverages, and
[18:50]something else of the bee. I don't know. It's like amazing. Yeah. I would totally love to be a part
[18:59]of that book's drinks. Right. And it can't eat them, you know. Yeah, it's totally.
[19:06]Okay, advice for aspiring authors. What's your advice? Gosh, I would say find a community of
[19:15]other writers. I think that, you know, when you're working on a project, when you're just trying
[19:21]to figure out what your book is about feels really lonely. And at least for me, it felt like
[19:28]there are times when I was just writing into a void and I didn't know where I was going. If
[19:34]anybody was ever going to read this, if I would ever sell it. And it's just, you know, you have
[19:40]to be really self-motivated and you have to have a lot of faith. My book took five years to write.
[19:45]So, you know, there were, I mean, I didn't work on that. Like I said, I only do an hour a day.
[19:52]Oh, maybe that's why I took so long, but I'm just kidding. But I know, it's just like there are,
[19:57]there's definitely fallow periods.
[20:00]it's where I'm just like, I don't know what Jane wants
[20:05]or I don't know who Fiona is in this moment.
[20:08]And so having a community of writers,
[20:11]not just like teachers and mentors,
[20:14]even though having mentors is really wonderful too,
[20:18]but having writers who are also just working their way
[20:23]through it and working on their own manuscripts.
[20:25]And you can trade work and be accountable
[20:28]to one another without necessarily being like
[20:33]on the hook to give feedback.
[20:35]Do you know what I mean?
[20:36]And if you want to, you can,
[20:38]but I throughout the working on this book,
[20:40]I had a writing group and the three of us
[20:42]would just meet up once a month
[20:44]and that was a really nice way of feeling like,
[20:49]okay, I have to buy this meeting date,
[20:51]have something to show my writing group.
[20:53]Got it, amazing.
[20:55]Okay, Jean, thank you.
[20:57]I hope you enjoy the rest of your day.
[21:00]What are you going to be doing the rest of the day?
[21:02]I have two more podcasts picking up my kids at school.
[21:06]That's a lot of stuff, yeah.
[21:08]That's enough.
[21:10]And it's later here.
[21:12]That's right.
[21:13]And then we have to, I guess,
[21:15]stay updated on it's happening in Ukraine.
[21:18]Which is yeah.
[21:19]Okay, okay.
[21:20]All right. Thank you so much for having me.
[21:22]Thanks for coming.
[21:23]Bye. Bye.
[21:24]Hi, I'm Sivi Owens
[21:27]and you're listening to the award-winning podcast.
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