Ai Jiang: Transcending Genres and Exploring the Human Experience

From Tutor to Acclaimed Author and Stoker and Nebula Award Winner

Author Ai Jiang

This interview was first published on Notes from the Town Hermit.

Ai Jiang | 江艾

, a rising star in the literary world, has captured the hearts and minds of readers with her evocative storytelling and unique perspective. Born in Changle, Fuzhou, Fujian, China, Ai moved to Canada at the age of four, growing up in the vibrant neighborhoods of Downtown Chinatown, Toronto, and later Scarborough, Ontario. Now residing in Markham, Ontario, she has found her home and voice as a writer.

Ai’s journey to becoming a professional writer is a testament to her passion and determination. During the challenging times of the COVID-19 pandemic, she embarked on a soul-searching quest that led her to rediscover her love for reading and writing. She took a leap of faith and left her previous job as a tutor and ghost writer to pursue her dream of becoming a full-time author under her own name.

Inspired by literary giants such as Toni Morrison, Kazuo Ishiguro, Ted Chiang, Khaled Hosseini, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Shirley Jackson, Ai delved deeper into her craft, focusing on finding and refining her unique voice as a writer, connecting with readers through her stories, and never losing sight of the precious nature of storytelling.

Ai’s dedication and talent have not gone unnoticed. In an amazing achievement, in the last two weeks, she has won both the Stoker Award and Nebula Award for Linghun. She has also been nominated for several prestigious awards in the same year, including the Hugo, Astounding, and BSFA awards.

When not writing, Ai finds joy in the company of her three beloved cats—Owl and Phantom, polydactyl Highland Lynxes, and Torch, a Scottish Fold. She cherishes the memories of her childhood passions, from her dreams of becoming a stand-up comedian to her countless hours spent baking and sharing her creations with classmates.

Married in the winter of 2021 at the age of 24, Ai has found love and support in her personal life. As she continues to navigate the balance between art and industry, Ai Jiang remains committed to her craft, poised to leave an indelible mark on the literary landscape.

I’m so excited to introduce Ai to you. I read her book, Linghun, a haunting story about family and grief, which is still living in my brain, and her novelette, I Am Ai, a poignant story of what it means to be human. I have had the pleasure of getting to know her better as a friend and colleague since then. She is amazing, y’all.

Without further ado, let’s get on with the interview!

You’ve touched on the idea of experimentalism in your writing. Can you discuss some of the innovative techniques or ways you’ve pushed genre boundaries, and how they contribute to your overall vision?

One thing I’ve been very much interested in, particularly in my long form, is non-linear storytelling and stories that break away from the traditional three-act structure, formats that are fragmented, disorienting, drawing on storytelling traditions across time and media, such as the cinematics of movies or the acts of a Shakespearean play. But I love experimenting most with POVs, and have found myself drawn to second person and first person plural specifically as of late. I wonder if it’s because I come from an upbringing that is more focused on the collective rather than the individual, where you must live your life for the sake of the family rather than for the self, to be a gear in an engine rather than being that very engine.

Though, I find that as I grow older, I have been leaning much more towards individuality and trying to discover what truly makes me tick and what I myself want out of this life. Language is something that I’ve been experimenting with in my work as well, the way that my Chinese-Canadian identity might manifest in the English written language, and its presentation through characters like myself on page—the way diacritics are lost like accents, kept based on associations, willingly and purposely discarded due to assimilation, or spitefully clung onto in fear of losing the connection with our past selves and identities.

How do you balance your artistic integrity with the expectations of the market and publishing industry?

Going into publishing, I knew there would be some books I write compared to others that would be harder for a Western market to digest than others, but I find that I am oscillating between works that are more suited to the market in terms of style, narrative progression, and voice and ones that are purely for my own self-indulgence. I’d love to be able to sell and have a wide readership for both these types of works, so in revisions, I’ve been trying to reconcile the artistic and the commercial without losing my voice and artistic intentionality. That does mean compromising on some things when it comes to editors and agents while pushing back on others that I think will take the soul out of my writing.

You recently talked of reclaiming your reasons for writing. Can you share more about that and what drives you as an artist?

I mentioned a bit about this in a previous answer, but I think what drives me most as an artist is discovery, wonder, and curiosity—the desire to learn and keep learning, to peel back the layers of people around me and the world in which I live to better understand the why and the how, even if there are no answers to be found for some of my questions, or far more answers than I could ever imagine, comprehend, or find myself overwhelmed in trying to dive deeper into.

I’ve always loved philosophy, history, and trying to observe and figure out human nature. As a child, I would say I was a keen observer. Humans, to me, are fascinating—our contradictory nature, how ever-changing we are, the direction of our evolution, how our thought processes differ yet share similarities, how polarized we can be, how much we crave change yet resist it at the same time. And I hope that is an exploration I can continue to undertake through my writing.

Being an author is a difficult career choice, especially for underrepresented writers. What challenges have you faced and how did you overcome them? How do you think your unique perspective contributes to the broader literary landscape?

I think with being an underrepresented writer, we can be both hyper-visible and invisible at the same time. There are moments where imposter syndrome hits, and I ask myself whether my work is being read, promoted, etc., simply because I am a person of color and whether it’s not by merit but by obligation that people are picking up my work. And yet at the same time, there are also moments where I wonder if my work isn’t being read, promoted, etc., for the same reason—that people aren’t able to “connect” with my characters, my world, my ideas.

But I have been fortunate in finding readers and writers alike who seem to welcome me wholeheartedly into the writing community and are able to connect and sympathize with the characters I’ve written and created. Though in terms of the fear of being invisible, I suppose I attempted to overcome that by producing a large volume of work and sending out endless submissions in hopes that by having my writing and name appear in many places, it can help not only me, but other writers like myself be noticed.

In what ways do you think your writing has evolved since your first publication, and how do you keep yourself growing as a writer?

I think my understanding of the basic elements of a story and what is most important to include has improved, though foraying into long form means that I am starting from scratch once more in trying to figure out how structuring anything longer than 5,000 words might work with my chaotic mind. I feel as though I’ve lost some of the rawness of my voice as a beginning writer to something (hopefully?) more refined, though I am trying to regain the spark of imagery and emotions that I thought I had a better grasp of when I first started writing, when it wasn’t all about craft but more about the heart.

I suppose I am better at plotting now, at getting the narrative on the page with more coherence, but at the same time, it seems as though the emotionality of my stories is being held back compared to before, at least in the initial drafts before I dive back in to bring my characters to life. With that said, I suppose I’m better at revising now, and have grown to love it—the way that gems become polished, statues whittled and clean-cut—whereas I would leave my short stories as first or second drafts, afraid to look back at them and recognize all the holes and inconsistencies I had left.

I am constantly on the lookout to improve and complicate my craft, whether it is through the use of unconventional techniques or through brushing up my writing by picking up craft books and essays. That, and I find research is wonderful in that it teaches me more about the world, challenges me to think and rethink what I know, or rather, what I think I know. Though I’ve come to understand that I truly know nothing at all, but I want to learn, to keep attempting to understand, even if I never get any closer to such a thing.

What I’ve noticed is how much your books transcend genre and get to profound human experiences. Can you discuss how you approach the exploration of these universal themes in your writing? In what ways do you believe this genre-transcending approach contributes to the emotional resonance and impact of your stories on readers?

I think, as a whole, our world, or at least the parts that humans inhabit, has become a collage of our evolution and development and experiences, in that we have shaped and reshaped much of the landscape of the world, almost terraformed earth with our footprints, histories, and technologies that earth itself might as well be called “human” at this point (though there is still much of the planet we have yet to mar and I hope these places remain that way). Our minds, also, though some may argue for compartmentalism, are an intricate blend, a kaleidoscopic mosaic, of genres, in that we likely do not experience things like science, fantasy, and horror as separate but as intersecting experiences.

But in fiction, with genre expectations, marketing, and categorization, it seems like we writers are almost forced to think of these things as separate, to refuse far-reaching science, fantasy and magic, the supernatural and paranoia in what people would call realist works, though I suppose there is magical realism and speculative fiction now—and yet, people still seem so firm on the boundaries of genre. In my opinion, evolution comes from discovery, comes from imagination, comes from things that did not once exist but now do, and I suppose my argument would be that stories, fiction, and the SFFH genres, are an integral part of human evolution and the psyche. In approaching universal themes, I tend to draw on theories and concepts introduced to me in philosophy but also in literary criticism, and also thoughts and questions that arise on a daily basis that I brew endlessly on.

I believe that if the emotional core of a story is sound, then no matter how different the crafted worlds may seem from our own, there are key touchstones of human struggle, society, rebellion and resistance and revolution, goal-seeking and connection-making, the struggle between nature and industry, the individual and the collective, that transcend genre and the expectations and confines of categorization, and thus, reach readers in unexpected ways, past the plot, past the blurb and synopsis, past the genre.

Tell us a little about your upcoming book and why you wrote it.

A PALACE NEAR THE WIND (the first book in a novella duology forthcoming with Titan Books in Spring 2025) is my meditation on the impact of industrialization on nature, but also in part an exploration of a common thread that runs through my works—immigration and migration, displacement, and individual versus collective identity. It is about nature’s often unwilling sacrifices and the capitalism of humans and the poisoning of the natural world by greed and materialism. It seems we always have a reason to take, an excuse not to replenish, and with the current state of the world, I think it is more important than ever to reflect on the irreparable damage humanity’s existence and evolution has caused earth, and to question perceived “human superiority” more critically before it’s too late, if it isn’t already.

To stay up to date with all Ai is doing, follow her on X, Instagram, BlueSky, Facebook, and her website. For all other places to connect, check out her links page.

Asian Writers Collective is 100% reader-funded. Your paid subscription fuels our mission to highlight Asian voices on the literary landscape. Consider supporting this publication through a subscription or a one time donation.