Nghi Vo is the author of the novels Siren Queen and The Chosen and the Beautiful, as well as the acclaimed novellas of the Singing Hills Cycle, which began with The Empress of Salt and Fortune. The series entries have been finalists for the Locus Award and the Lambda Literary Award, and have won the Crawford Award, the Ignyte Award, and the Hugo Award. Born in Illinois, she now lives on the shores of Lake Michigan. She believes in the ritual of lipstick, the power of stories, and the right to change your mind. 

I had the opportunity to interview Nghi, which you can read below.

First of all, welcome to Geeks OUT! Could you tell us a little about yourself?

Hello, thank you for having me! Last time, I checked, I’m Nghi Vo, I write books for money, I live in the midwest, and I’m having a pretty good time!

As an author you are known for writing a wide collection of books, including The Singing Hills Cycle. What was your original inspiration for this novella series?

The Singing Hills Cycle started with The Empress of Salt and Fortune, which tells the story of the rebellion of a cast-off empress through the documentation of various objects. If I was going to do a documentation, I needed someone to do the documenting, and there’s how I got Cleric Chih and their memory spirit bird, Almost Brilliant. Empress was meant to be a one-off, but then my editor at the time, Ruoxi Chen, asked if it could be a series, and it all rolled on from there.

As a writer, what drew you to the art of storytelling, especially speculative fiction?

At the most basic level, storytelling and speculative fiction are fun. That’s the long and short of it to me. I’ve written a lot of things for money, everything from vacuum cleaner parts to articles about not riding bears, and I never have more fun than when I’m telling someone about something that never happened. Basically, if I could have robot horses and dragons and goddesses and curses, why wouldn’t I?

How would you describe your writing process?

“As fast and efficient as I can manage.”

I was a freelance writer for more than a decade before I started publishing speculative fiction, so my process is pretty no-nonsense. I sit down and write the rough draft, I let it cool off, I reread it fixing small things and noting big things that need to be revisited, I fix the big things, I do another reread to make sure I’m not embarrassing myself, and then I send it off to be someone else’s problem for a bit.

What are some of your favorite elements of writing? What do you consider some of the most frustrating and/or difficult?

My favorite thing about writing is seeing things take shape on the page. The story that exists on the page is always different from the one in your head, and the differences are unexpected and sometimes delightful. The story in your head is perfect, but the story on the page is always going to be better.

Hmm, difficult, how about trying to make a living off of it?

As an author, who or what would you say are some of your greatest artistic and creative influences and/or sources of inspiration in general?

Let’s see, I’m very inspired by Angela Carter, Chuck Tingle, and Tanith Lee, the poems of C. P. Cavafy, random things I hear on public transport, archaeology, marine biology, and just generally the fact that in any situation, in any place and any time, people want to create art.

Many authors would say one of the most challenging parts of writing a book is finishing one. What strategies would you say helped you accomplish this?

You know, usually by the end of the book, I’m so tired of it I’m more than ready to do whatever it takes to end it. I have the best time with books where I know where the ending is, so I write towards that. I have nothing but love for pantsers, but I get into so much trouble if I don’t know how the book is going to end when I begin it.

Aside from your work, what are some things you would want others to know about you?

I’m having a really bad time learning how to play the F chord on a guitar. It is actively unmaking me.

If you ever ask me “are you Nghi Vo?” and I say “no,” I’m really, really sorry; you just startled me. My agent is trying to teach me to say “why, are you a process server?”

What’s a question you haven’t been asked yet but that you wish you were asked (as well as the answer to that question)?

Q. Hey, do you want to try this deeply convincing vegetarian substitute for Vietnamese caramelized pork belly?

A. YES

What advice might you have to give for aspiring writers?

A bad agent/publisher is worse than no agent/publisher at all.

The writers at your level are not your competition, they are your colleagues, so treat them as such.

You don’t need to write every day, you just need words on the page, however and whenever that happens.

Done is always better than perfect.

Know why you’re here and why you’re doing what you’re doing.

If you need word-processing software, LibreOffice is free and fantastic. It’s what I’ve been using since I left college.

Are there any other projects you are working on and at liberty to speak about?

Hmm, I actually just finished another Singing Hills novella, this one based around the end of the world, and a really fun story for an anthology. There’s a novel I want to get well underway before the year ends. I think it has something to do riverboats? I’m figuring it out!

Finally, books/authors (LGBTQ+ or otherwise) would you recommend to the readers of Geeks OUT? 

Ooh, let’s see, last books I really dug were Gretchen Felker-Martin’s Manhunt and Kim Bo-Young’s I’m Waiting for You. Both of those books punched me in the chest, it was great.