Meerkat Press introduces you to Ai Jiang, who is one of several poets being featured in their new upcoming book anOther Nemesis. She talks to us about her upcoming projects
1. Tell us about yourself and your most current project/s?
I am a Chinese-Canadian writer, Ignyte, Bram Stoker, and Nebula Award winner, and Hugo, Astounding, Locus, Aurora, and BFSA Award finalist born in Changle, Fujian, currently residing in Markham, Ontario. My work can be found in F&SF, The Dark, Clarkesworld, The Masters Review, among others. I am the author of A Palace Near the Wind, Linghun and I AM AI.
Currently, I’m working on my next science fantasy book due out with Titan Books in Fall 2027 titled An Opera of Salamanders and returning to my darker fiction with a strange little idea that I won’t speak too much about yet!
2. Where did the inspiration/idea come for this project?
For An Opera of Salamanders, the idea came about when I was researching the terracotta army and intangible cultures in China, along with thoughts about the origins of Chinese opera and Fuzhou opera that my grandmother often listens to on her cassette tape player.
3. What does the writing process look like for you?
Very chaotic. I often disappear from the world for two weeks, working twelve hours a day, or sometimes two-three days straight with very little sleep when I’m actively drafting. I find it very difficult to break my time up to write long form and find it most effectively when I draft in one go.
4. How do you handle writer’s block?
I usually watch or read something to relax my mind, but at the same time pick at what’s stopping me from continuing my work until I find a satisfying solution. More often than note, these solutions will come to me while I’m driving somewhere, while in the shower, or when I’m almost asleep.
5. How do you feed your creativity when feeling drained?
I often read a lot, and when I find a book I truly love, often the writing inspires me to return to my own, even if the book I’m reading is completely different from what I’d been writing.
6. What advice would you give writers who feel stuck or uninspired?
I would say, take a step back from your work and take a look at the world and people around you. Sometimes I feel stuck because I’ve become too detached from the external world, find myself too in my own head, and more often than not, what I’m writing is aimed at exploring something about the world, and thus to unpack it, I must first live in it and as a part of it.
7. Have you ever thought about giving up writing? If so, what pulled you back?
I don’t think I’ve ever had this thought. I’m rather persistent in this sense, where once I become obsessed with something, I don’t intend to stop.
8. How do you keep your voice or ideas fresh over time?
I’m often genre hopping because it keeps my brain entertained. Sci-fi, horror, fantasy, realism, speculative fiction all come with their unique characteristics, and it’s both difficult yet fun to switch between each across projects.
9. What do you wish more people understood about the creative process?
It is difficult and flawed and frustrating, and the end product might be something messy rather than whole, but I think that’s the beauty of it, of the courage to attempt and to attempt again and again.
10. What is the most honest thing you’ve ever written - and did it scare you?
A book I had finished last year I’d say that has yet to find a publisher. Rather than scaring me, I think it illuminated a good many revelations I had concerning wealth, marriage, and family during my last trip back to my hometown as well as my spouse’s hometown in China.
Where can my audience find you and your work?
For more information on anOther Nemesis or the blog tour check here:
