Ep. 59 - No Family Members Were Harmed in the Making of This Episode with Jesse Q. Sutanto

How does an author write her extended family into a madcap romantic comedy and live to tell the tale? Jesse Q. Sutanto--author of the YA thriller The Obsession; the middle-grade fantasy novel Theo Tan and the Fox Spirit; and the debut adult novel Dial A for Aunties, which is being adapted by Netflix into a film--discusses with Eve and Julie the cultural and familial components of her work. They talk about how killing off a (fictional!) blind date gave Jesse the distance she needed to write about her family, why a feast might be forthcoming in a time of emergency, and how Jesse ensured that authenticity overrode stereotyping when she wrote about her Chinese-Indonesian-American family. Jesse, a former wedding photographer, also lifts the veil on the pervasiveness of groomzillas. Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at [email protected]. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more. Book Dreams is a part of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices