It is mostly a mixture of my own experiences living in London as a woman from Asia and how unique that experience is. It's also based on the Chinese side of my family when I started writing this book a few years ago. My grandfather had just passed away, so I spent a lot of time thinking about my own relationship with my father and how that affected who I am as a person and how the way I grew up has shaped that person. So that's when I was thinking: How do we confront our history and figure the way to move forward with hope and with optimism? That's why the theme of time travel comes in, and that's why the family in the book is British-Chinese, because it's based on my family in the UK and my dad who was growing up in Hong Kong—my grandfather’s experience as well who was immigrating from China to Thailand. So it's all a mixture of history and family history.

 

 

There was a moment when I decided to be a writer. I think I was twelve when I decided, ‘Okay I want to write a book one day.’ There was a class at Thai school where we were learning English and I was talking to my best friend about writing a short story. It kinda clicked in my head because I have always loved reading since I was a very young girl. There was one day in class that I realized writing was something I could do. As for this novel, it started as my master's degree dissertation. We had to come up with 10 story ideas, just the title and a short synopsis describing what each story is about. ‘The Moon Represents My Heart’ was one of the story ideas that I had and I picked it to develop into my personal project because it has a stronger idea than the others. And it's also the most personal too. After I graduated I continued to finish it because it was always my dream to get a book published.

 

 

Not really, I don't know what I was expecting, because before you get published, your only goal is just to get published because it's very difficult. I don't think I had any expectation in terms of how people would react to the book—whether it would get translated into any other languages. All I had in mind was just to get it published. I was hoping that my family would enjoy it, which is the biggest thing. I hoped my parents would love it or that a few people who pick up the book would find something that resonates with them and makes them feel less alone.

 

 

I wanted something that represents my childhood and, you know, when Chinese people from different countries see the title of the book, they'll know immediately what song it is, because they have their own family history attached to the song. It's such a very Chinese song. When I was a little, this was a singer that different generations of my family knew. I know her music, my parents do, and my grandparents know it as well. We'd play the song in the car and listen to it together. It's the kinda song that bonds different generations of family members, and people of Chinese heritage all over the world. The lyrics also fit well to the novel: “If you wonder whether I love you, just look at the moon; the moon represents my heart and it's always there.”

 

 

I always love time travel in movies and books. I think it's such a fascinating genre because I also love history as well, and when it comes to time traveling novels you can write about historical events. I find it fascinating how our history informs our present. Maybe there are parallels between our history and our present…I think time traveling is such a cool genre, you can do these cool things like revisiting historic events, and more, but what I love the most about this genre is there are a lot of emotional states. People love the time travel genre because all of us have nostalgic feelings, we have regrets, and sometimes it's like a question that we ask ourselves: Would you do anything differently if you could go back in time. Time travel can be a good metaphor for us to explore the concept of loss, the concept of grief, and how we make peace with our history in order to move forward.

 

 

Definitely the female characters. Like I said, I moved to London to study when I was 18, and lived in London for four years and I think all of the story line moving to London, experiencing living as an Asian person from Asia, all that is based on my own experiences living in the west. You have to face discrimination or find your place in a big city. The relationship dynamic in the book is also based on my own. For example, the siblings' closeness is based on my relationship with my younger brother. The character Joshua is based on both my grandfather's experiences and my father's experiences. 

 

 

I'm working on my second book with my UK publisher. I have a deal to write two books, so I have to write another one. The second one, the characters are going to be Thai and it is set in Bangkok and Scotland. I used to live in Scotland as well. It’s supposed to be a romance.