How'd you enjoy The Assassin? I know when I read it that I couldn't stop. I just had to know what was going to happen next, what sort of plan was unfolding, who was coming after the guys, who they might turn to... so many twists and turns in the story evolution. I enjoyed it, and I hope you did too, so make sure you share your comments below. But first...! My interview with Lilansui is below, so you get to know all the deep details of the writing journey before you comment. 

Have you ever gone out in public, realized your shirt is on backwards, and just don’t care?

Something close, it was inside out and not backwards.  My workplace was running a conference.  I woke up late, so I dressed fast in a black top and jeans, rushed out of my house to collect supplies from my office, and then drive to the conference hall.

At the venue, I worked for a solid hour until one of the ladies I work with took me by the hand and led me into a small office.  She’s like, ‘Your top is inside out.’  It should have mortified me, but I just laughed, changed and continued as if nothing happened.  Thinking of it now, was it to happen in my starting out days, that would have mortified me, but not anymore.

If you were an animal, what would you be?

A cat.  I have one and she just sleeps and eats without a care in the world.  All she has to do is cute poses and I’m done for…hahaha.

What’s one location you’d love to go to research for a story?

Istanbul, Turkey.  The carpets, the architecture, the history…so much.  I can just imagine it already.

What has been the toughest criticism given to you as an author? What has been the best compliment?

The toughest criticism: - I have had criticisms, lots of them, from ‘your work needs more research’, ‘bad grammar’, ‘huge plot holes’ to ‘I don’t understand what you’re trying to say with this one’.  I take them, love them and learn more.

Best Compliment: - Came in a personal message sent to me on social from someone who thanked me for writing an Asian character in Kiss Me to Spring Time who found love in a gay story.  He said it gave him hope, hope and more hope and to keep creating more such characters.  He made me cry.

Is there a literary character (in the whole universe of fiction) that you’ve read who you really identified with?

There is a manga named Nana by Yazawa Ai.  It’s about two girls with the same name, Nana, moving to Tokyo for a fresh start.  When I first read it, and I was around twenty or so, I swear, I fell in love with Nana the rock star.  Her ambition made her so awesome, that I wanted the best for her always, plus she was in love with a guitarist, and she built her own table.  She was soo cool.  I collected all the books in this manga series.  For a while, I thought I would only ever wear Vivienne Westwood knuckle rings and listen to punk rock, hahaha.  Nana inspired me to find courage in my own life.  Up to this day, I find great pleasure in rereading her story.  I loved that she had a dream, and decided to make it come true on her own terms.  I loved, and still love her style of doing things.  She’s a get-it-done kind of girl, and I strive to be that too.

There was this assassin… and a milkshake at the mall. Seriously, where did those two ideas come from and how did they get paired together?

When I was in high school, my friends and I were in different schools and we would have to wait for each other at the food court in the mall, so that we could do whatever we had planned for the afternoon.  Whoever made it first would buy a milkshake, as they waited.  I figured Kian would try one out if he ever went to the mall.  He likes the strawberry one, lol.

A lot of your stories have eastern influences. Is it easy or hard to mesh cultures when writing fiction?

When I first started writing, it was hard.  I worried a lot about mixing characters with different ideals, and such different backgrounds, putting them together and going like, dear readers, here you are, believe this can happen.  It was hard, and I needed to do a lot of research, I even thought this might be a crazy idea, better stop.

Then one day I decided to stop worrying and just write what I wanted to express.  From personal experience at work and life, I meet people from all types of cultures.  I’m comfortable thinking of Diwali, the lunar year or going to an Indian festival of colors, the same way I invite people to my house for Chuseok, thanksgiving or Christmas, that it now seems commonplace to have meshed cultures.   I can’t be the only one who has this happening.  So, I decided to jump in and bring my characters to life in a similar way.

I think communities as they exist today are very diverse in nature.  There is no place in the world you’ll go and find only one kind of person, in terms of culture, or any other category you might choose, unless the community itself is living in a kind of vacuum.  We’ve all become a global village of sorts. Thinking of it this way, writing meshed cultures has gotten so much easier and I don’t struggle as much as I did when I first started.

Did you connect with Daven or Kian more as a character as you wrote The Assassin? Why?

I connected with Kian the most, as his life unfolded for me from when he was quite young.  He was someone who had lived a life without love, or comfort at home.  He had a lot of hardship and a very warped sense of what things are right or wrong.  By the time he’s meeting Daven, he has met the world, and it has given him love, (in Taewon), then forced him to give it up to protect it.  He’s not confident in himself and does not even think of seeing the future.  I wondered how I would ever get Daven to like him. Hahaha.

Daven came to me in a situational sequence; I had to spend a lot more time getting to know him.  He came out stronger than I expected, and it was fun getting him to rescue Kian at some point.  He was a great hero to create.

In this story the characters jet around the world to quite a few locations. Have you visited any that were mentioned in the storyline?

I had a work exchange a few years ago that had me in France for a week.  My host family had a charming apartment in the city.  Their daughter, Hye Sung, who turned into my very good friend, took me to café du trocadero when she got out of work, or very early in the morning for breakfast when we could.  My stay with them was very short, but very inspiring experience.  I had to give Paris a mention.

What’s your favorite part of The Assassin? Why?

My favorite part is Kian and Daven’s date in Amsterdam, although Kian leaves Daven at the end of it, I think it was the first time he truly did something he wanted without fear.  I thought it beautiful.