I actually didn’t connect the dots until after I’d started writing it—which is surprising given that I grew up watching and re-watching the Hughes ouvre. Now that I think about it, my first novel was called Girls for Breakfast--maybe I’ve been thinking subconsciously of the movie for years…

 I’d be Bryce from Sixteen Candles, because he and his brother Cliff had night-vision goggles, which is on a long list of things I’d probably enjoy having but will never come remotely close to owning.

 I just looked around the house and was kind of stunned to find that I’m not much of a collector these days. It’s surprising because I’m the very definition of a pack-rat. I can’t for the life of me throw out dead tennis balls, broken watches, dried out pens…technically I have a ridiculously large dried-out-pen collection…

I was really shy around adults and older kids and a little hyper around my peers. I’d probably have a love/hate relationship with Peter.

Interesting..I had a love/hate relationship with Peter too. Well, not really hate, but he did really irritate me at times. I love how your characters move beyond the "I am Asian" stereotype. Their race is just another part of them and they seem to be comfortable with that. However, I've noticed many books featuring Asian characters seem to perpetuate the model minority stereotype or the common immigrant stereotype. How can we breakthrough these stereotypes in literature?

 Well, The Detention Club isn’t about race, and I try to avoid like the plague broaching/inserting “issues” into my stories merely for the sake of having them in there. Race, as with any other issue, only belongs in a piece of fiction if it’s absolutely crucial to the story, and that just wasn’t the case, this time around. As for perpetuating the model minority stereotype—I think what’s more important is whether or not an honest story is being told. But I know what you mean—you don’t want the model minority or immigrant stereotype story to become the only story that can be told about Asian characters—in effect pigeonholing future stories starring AA characters.

 On that topic, my first collection of essays for adults that comes out next spring, The Choke Artist: Confessions of a Chronic Underachiever (Grand Central) is, as you can surmise from the title, about how growing up I was pretty much the complete opposite of the model minority. Ultimately, I think the way to break through stereotypes is simply to have as much a variety of offerings out there, presenting a wider-range portrait of the Asian American experience.

 I'm excited to read your collection of essay and was in fact going to ask you about that. So thank you, for giving us more details. On that note, what are your thoughts about whitewashing book covers such as the Silver Phoenix series by Cindy Pon?

 I’m not familiar with the cover, but I definitely used to cringe at decidedly “Asian-y” covers (I’ve hardened over the years I guess). The way it exoticizes the Asian American experience with those kinds of covers and basically promotes stereotypes is no different from describing people from the deep South as if they all have no teeth and wear tank tops and have cousins named Cletus. You can still spot Asian American-penned books from a mile away in the bookstore—the cover gives them away almost every time: the bambooish font, the “jet black” hair, NBA player Marcus Camby’s exotic Chinese characters tattoo embossed across the bottom, etc…

I try not to intentionally “write funny.” Doing so only results in painfully unfunny sentences that nakedly feel like the author’s trying too hard. I don’t have a secret, though. It goes back to that old saying I guess—tragedy plus time equals comedy. As an adult looking back on my youth, the distance allows me to find the humor in a situation I would have found mortifying/frustrating/sad when I was a kid.

I once shaved lines into the sides of my head because that’s what the older soccer guys were doing, only I shaved vertical lines instead of horizontal lines and it looked ridiculous.

 I like reading MG as much as YA, and most of my favorites from childhood were MG, so it was always something I’d wanted to try. As for changing my writing style—it was more that I had to change my mindset—getting into the head of an 11-year-old, which is at the very least a good deal less jaded than my 16-year-old narrators.