Joan He answers our Ten Terrifying Questions!

by |May 10, 2021
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Joan He is a Chinese-American writer. Descendant of the Crane was her debut young-adult fantasy novel. She is donating some of the proceeds of her second novel, The Ones We’re Meant to Find, to Ocean Conservancy. Joan lives in Philadelphia and writes from a desk overlooking the Delaware River.

Today, Joan He is on the blog to answer our Ten Terrifying Questions – read on!


Joan He

Joan He

1. To begin with why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself – where were you born? Raised? Schooled?

I was born in the city of Philadelphia and raised and schooled in its suburbs, though you wouldn’t be able to tell by how often I still get lost!

2. What did you want to be when you were twelve, eighteen and thirty? And why?

By the time I was twelve, I’d spent five years training as a professional artist. My parents, teachers, and peers all thought I was gifted, and I couldn’t imagine being anything else. But come high school, I decided that the career wasn’t for me and quit. Writing was my way of processing through the angst of losing that part of my identity. By eighteen, I was determined to become a published author. I have yet to reach thirty, but fingers crossed that I’m still writing and publishing!

3. What strongly held belief did you have at eighteen that you don’t have now?

I believed that my writing was great haha. But having finally gotten past the rejections and through this door, I now deal with a lot more impostor syndrome than I did before. It’s true what they say: the more you know, the more you realize you don’t know. Every author around me deserves to be here, and I still have a lot of room to grow compared to them.

4. What are three works of art – this could be a book, painting, piece of music, film, etc – that influenced your development as a writer?

Ramona Quimby, Spirited Away, The Hunger Games.

5. Considering the many artistic forms out there, what appeals to you about writing a young adult novel?

All the works listed above are formative for me for a reason. One of them, I’d argue, is that I consumed them when I was a young adult or younger. Stories are powerful because they make us feel seen; that power is amplified when you find yourself in a book during a time when the world is a scary, lonely place and everything feels a bit apocalyptic.

6. Please tell us about your latest book!

The Ones We’re Meant to Find is a sci-fi/fantasy about two sisters separated by an ocean, trying to find their way back to each other. One has been stuck on an abandoned island for just over three years; another is dealing with the aftermath of her sister’s disappearance while living in a futuristic world wrecked by climate change. There’s a cute android, floating cities, a very big twist, and a whole lot of pain.

‘Stories are powerful because they make us feel seen; that power is amplified when you find yourself in a book during a time when the world is a scary, lonely place and everything feels a bit apocalyptic.’

7. What do you hope people take away with them after reading your work?

To start, more questions than answers. No matter how fantastical or speculative, I want the dilemmas in my story to mirror our real world and all of its complexities and contradictions. For The Ones We’re Meant to Find, I pose this question in particular: Cee and Kasey are very different characters. Does one deserve to live just because we relate to them more? It’s hard to care about everyone equally, and yet it’s the people we do not see ourselves in—the people we sometimes do not see at all—who are most impacted by our actions, or lack thereof.

8. Who do you most admire in the writing world and why?

Ack, so hard to name just one! Recently, it’s been Neal Shusterman. I’ve been reading him since Unwind, and I’m amazed by the breadth of his works and his particular brand of genius.

9. Many artists set themselves very ambitious goals. What are yours?

I probably have the same pipe dreams as every author, but my most genuine (and ambitious) goal is to never write the same story twice and to keep on publishing books without sacrificing the bits that make them mine.

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

Balance improving your craft and taking critique and figuring out what makes a story uniquely yours (and preserve that at all costs). Read, read, read. And, of course, never give up.

Thank you for playing!

The Ones We’re Meant to Find by Joan He (Text Publishing) is out now.

The Ones We're Meant to Findby Joan He

The Ones We're Meant to Find

by Joan He

Cee woke up on the shores of an abandoned island three years ago with no idea how she got there. Now eighteen, she lives in a shack with an ageing android, and a single memory- she has a sister, and she has to escape to find her.

From the safety of the eco-city floating above Earth, now decimated by natural disasters, sixteen-year-old Kasey mourns Cee whom she's sure is dead. She too wants to escape - the eco-city is meant to be a sanctuary for people who want to save the planet, but its inhabitants are willing to do anything for refuge, even lie...

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