I feel that the act of writing the book in itself without even submitting it for publication was transformative. It allowed me to heal because I was … - Qian Julie Wang

In our undocumented existence, it was unsafe for me to be fully honest about myself and my reality with any other real person. Fictional characters thus formed my safe circle — the place in which I was safe to be my full self. Overnight, I also saw all my loved ones and family disappear, and I didn’t know whether I would ever see them again. The characters of these books filled that void of loneliness, and in their presence I learned that it was natural to be scared sometimes, or lonely. They also taught me the power of storytelling, and of words.

I always wanted to share my story, even when I wasn’t talking about the past and didn’t tell anyone that I was undocumented. I always felt that I had this story burning inside me and it was frustrating to have it pent up in there. It was growing inside me and gnawing at my consciousness, so I think it needed to take this long for this book to come out and if I waited longer, it probably would have come out in a different form.

In books, both fiction and nonfiction, what matters is not what happens in the book but how is it is told. By virtue of living, we experience facets of the human experience. How we experience those facets and what we take away from them are both fascinating because they are uniquely ours (because there is no other person exactly like each of us on the planet, and no one who will respond exactly the same way) and because it is universally human. Thus, it does not so much matter what you write about, but how you choose to write and what messages you share. To aspiring writers: I hope you will remember that there is magic and beauty in your experiences and perspectives simply because they are yours.