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| Photo by Dru Valentine |
Stefany Valentine is the author of the new young adult novel First Love Language.
Q: You've said that First Love Language was partly based on your own experiences--can you say more about that, and about how you created your character Catie?
A: Catie and I share many similarities. We are both adoptees, we both grew up Mormon, we both lost our dads to cancer, we both forgot Mandarin with age, and we both have a deep longing to reconnect with culture, heritage, and family.
The differences between me and Catie are that she only has one sister (I grew up with eight siblings), and that she has a Toby. I think her love story is far sweeter and better deserved than my personal love story.
Q: What did you see as the right balance between reality and fiction as you worked on the novel?
A: Technically, the entire story is a work of fiction. However, I think the best stories come from the heart and while Catie and I have similar backgrounds, what she did with what she was given was different than what I did with it when I was 17. But I also think having a great editor helps with jugging reality and fiction.
Q: The writer Anna Gracia said of the book, “The yearning for a language lost or never known tugs at an unspoken sadness familiar to many in the diaspora, but Valentine handles the added complications of religion, grief, and love with a lightness and relatability that will have readers flying through its pages.” What do you think of that description?
A: This description hits so hard! When writing First Love Language, I went into a mental headspace of deep shame and embarrassment. Like, how can I be proud to be Taiwanese when I don't even know what that means?
But that exact feeling is an experience that's shared in the diaspora because there is so much loss whether it's language, traditions, culture, family, food. It's really nothing to be embarrassed about but rather I think the loss is what brings us together.
And of course, there are always layers to experiences. I'm glad I was able to intersect Catie's diasporic experience with religion, grief, and love because we are all such complicated people. I think the layers are what give us dimension.
Q: What do you see as the role of the Mormon religion in the novel?
A: For starters, I grew up Mormon. It felt fitting to write what I know. Additionally, since much of the book surrounds The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman, I felt that I needed an organic way to address the regressive values from which the love languages were built.
For those who don't know, Chapman was a marriage counselor who used Christianity as a basis for perpetuating hetero and patriarchal values. For FLL, I wanted to use the pop culture element of the love languages without claiming its harmful origins. I hope that through Rayleigh's story arc, I accomplished what I set out to do.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I'm working on going out on submission with my adult romcom. It's a story about a bi ex-Mormon who is haunted by ghosts...and her religious trauma. Growing up Mormon did a number on me. There is a whole community of women deconstructing from religious trauma and I hope to provide a safe and validating space for that experience.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I found my biological mom while First Love Language was being published! I just think the timing of it was so perfect—First Love Language is the story I wrote about how badly I wanted to find her and then poof! Here she is!
And now I'm making plans to spend six months in Taiwan reconnecting with her and learning my forgotten first language! I've already gotten accepted to Chung Yaun Uiversity in Taiwan. I'm just in the process of getting my student visa and scholarships!
And of course they people who have helped me most along the way are fellow Asian adoptees. It just feels so full circle and in the chaos if the universe, I can't help but feel so lucky!
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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