If there’s something author Jesse Q. Sutanto does well, it is creating diverse reads with engaging characters and fun-filled stories. Her most notable recent release, Dial A For Aunties (Berkley), a cheeky comedy with edge, and her YA romances including Well That Was Unexpected (Delacorte Press), show that Sutanto can tackle any genre and theme with expertise.
Sutanto grew up between Jakarta and Singapore, got her Masters in Creative Writing at University of Oxford and, ever since then, has been passionate about writing about diverse characters. She has especially focused on strong female characters, a lot of which represent women in unique and entertaining situations, that showcase women’s rights, lives and depth, through immersive storytelling and a variety of settings.
We had a chance to catch up with Jesse Q. Sutanto about writing multiple genres, crafting characters based on her parents and the email from Oprah and Mindy Kaling that changed her life.
Q: You engage readers with well-rounded characters that come from diverse backgrounds. I love that you strongly support the fact that publishing should be diverse, especially with your background growing up back and forth between Jakarta and Singapore. Based on your experience, why do you feel that it is so crucial in our current climate to give a voice to authors that cater to diverse issues?
A: When I was growing up, there was so little diversity in books that when the (Caucasian) main character had dark hair and dark eyes, I felt represented. That was how dire the publishing landscape was! Even when I first started writing, I only wrote white characters because I didn’t think anyone was interested in non-white stories. It was such a cruel form of erasure, and I’m so glad that my kids have more diverse stories to choose from.
Q: As a writer, you have dabbled in different genres and styles. From the chilling YA thriller, The Obsession, where a girl seeks revenge against a stalker in her boarding school, to the bestselling adult romance series starting with Dial A for Aunties, your readers get the best of both worlds. How do you inspire yourself to write for different audiences? What are some elements that you enjoy adding to these stories?
A: Honestly, it’s mostly just me going, “Okay, now I’ve fulfilled my craving to write a lighthearted, fun-filled story. NOW I want to go dark.” Like with food, for example, my cravings change — I want Italian food one day, Korean food next, and so on. If I had to stick to just one genre, I’d get sick of it pretty quickly, I think. I’m so grateful that my publishers are happy with me writing in multiple genres. And across all genres, I’m always trying to have the most fun with it. If I’m making myself laugh, or squeal with excitement, then I know I’m going in the right direction.
Q: Your upcoming middle-grade story, Theo Tan and the Fox Spirit, covers the important lesson of dealing with grief, while mixing magic and action. How did you approach writing about grief for a younger audience, especially when it is often something that is unexpected that all ages have to deal with?
A: I rarely consciously think: “How should I write this for a younger audience?” I usually just think: “How would 12yo me deal with this?” and that has served me well so far. Fortunately, grief isn’t something that many kids have to deal with, but it’s a part of life, and I think reading about it helps us develop compassion, so I knew that I wanted that to be a huge part of Theo’s story.
Q: Let’s talk about your most recent novel, Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers. The book follows an older lady, who lives above her own tea shop in San Francisco and becomes an amateur sleuth determined to catch a murderer. I adored this character, her funny moments and her passion for solving mysteries. How did you shape this unique and fascinating character? Did anything or anyone help to inspire her passions and personality?
A: I didn’t even have to stop and think about Vera’s character, because she is 100% modeled after my own parents! I would say she is 75% my mom, 25% my dad. For example, her thing about cold water freezing the fats in your arteries and causing heart disease? That’s something my parents tell me every week. And they always have the most random pieces of health info, like: “If you go to bed past 9pm, you’ll get brain cancer!” So I didn’t even have to come up with anything new for Vera’s character, I just had to draw from my parents, haha! Luckily, my mom has read Vera and LOVED her sooo much. She was so proud of being the inspiration for Vera that she asked me for a dozen copies to hand out to her friends and told all of them that Vera is her.
Q: You have some very exciting projects in the works, including a new novel titled Didn’t See That Coming (Delacorte Press) set to release in Fall 2023. It was also announced that Oprah and Mindy Kaling are turning Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers into a TV series with Warner Bros. Tell us more about these exciting projects!
A: Oh gosh. The moment when I received the email from my film agents about Oprah and Mindy Kaling wanting to produce Vera Wong is now a core memory of mine! It was around 6:15am my time, 4:15pm LA time, and I was making my kids’ lunchboxes when my phone booped with an email. I squawked when I read it, and then I had to go back to making those lunchboxes! I can tell you that the lunchboxes SUCKED, hahaha. My kids were so unimpressed that day.
Anyway, so that was obviously the most mind-blowing experiences of my life, and I feel like the world’s luckiest writer to be able to say that Oprah and Mindy Kaling are producing my book into a TV series. As for Didn’t See That Coming, that is my YA romcom which I’m so excited about! It has a badass gamer girl and a total sweetheart of a cinnamon roll boy, and it’s set in a super strict school in Indonesia, so you just know there are going to be hijinks galore!
Jesse Q. Sutanto is the award-winning, bestselling author of Dial A for Aunties, Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, Well, That Was Unexpected, The Obsession and Theo Tan and the Fox Spirit. The film rights to her women’s fiction, Dial A for Aunties, was bought by Netflix in a competitive bidding war, and the TV rights to Vera Wong was bought by Warner Bros, with Oprah and Mindy Kaling attached to produce. She has a master’s degree in creative writing from Oxford University, though she hasn’t found a way of saying that without sounding obnoxious. Jesse lives in Indonesia with her husband, her two daughters and her ridiculously large extended family.
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