Zara González Hoang is an author and illustrator whose work has left me full of love and joy, and therefore I needed to know about her process (as I’m a non-visual artist who’s obsessed with visual art), character creation, and what she brings to her stories.
As a writer and illustrator, do characters appear to you visually, for you to draw and develop them into their own story, or what does the process look like?
As strange as it might sound since the majority of my work is as an illustrator, my characters don’t actually appear to me visually first. For me, writing has always come first and then the characters have appeared as the story develops.
This is a bit of a tangent but, a few years ago a friend told me about this condition called aphantasia – it is essentially a condition where people don't have a mind’s eye – they can’t visualize things. When she told me about it I was so amazed because it perfectly described how my mind’s eye (or lack there of) worked. I assumed it was like that for everyone, but apparently some people can actually SEE things in their minds. I can’t and I think, to bring this back to your question, is why the story and the “feel” of things always comes before the look of things. I don’t actually “see” anything, I think I just feel my way to what the character looks like because I can’t actually visualize anything in my mind.
I think that’s also why I like words and language so much, as the words and the rhythm and the language click into place, the story becomes clearer to me so I can feel my way to the visuals.
In A New Kind of Wild, you write about a Puerto Rican boy who moves to the US and is homesick and therefore can’t enjoy his new home. It’s such an interesting way to write diasporic feelings of displacement, especially in the format of a picture book. Why do you think this is a narrative that is necessary today?
It is necessary because we are living in a world where empathy is in increasingly short supply. Especially towards immigrants. I wanted to share the story of a child trying to adjust to a life that was turned upside down by having to leave everything they loved behind. Not just a house, but essentially, an entire world and everything that made it special. There are so many children that are experiencing this type of trauma every day and I think it is important to share the experience of it with all children to encourage them to have more empathy for the people in their community (and outside it) who have had to deal with this kind of change.
I also wanted to give children feeling homesick the hope that they can find themselves again in this new place. What I learned from my dad, who this story is inspired by, is that you may have to leave your home, but it never leaves you. You carry pieces of it inside you and when you are ready to find them, they will be there.
You also illustrated Thread of Love, but didn’t write that. How did the process compare with drawing your own story? Since it was a book full of characters from a different culture than you, was there research involved or was it directed by the authors? What’s the relationship between author(s) and artist like?
Thread of Love was the first picture book I worked on, so I had no clue what I was doing when I started. The expression “Ignorance is Bliss” was totally apt in this case because the process was so smooth and easy I assumed the process always was. (spoiler: it’s not!) It is a million times easier to work on a project you are only illustrating than one you are writing and illustrating. Only having to focus on the pictures is so relaxing!
With Thread of Love, because it was not a culture I shared, I did a ton of research into both Raksha Bandhan and into the culture of the characters. With picture books, there isn’t typically a dialogue directly between the illustrator and author but my editor and art director were great about relaying information between me and the authors. I was able to ask questions about style, culture, holiday etc very easily and the authors were great about answering those questions and pointing out places in the illustrations where we might want to change things a bit or add something to make it more relevant.
It may seem a bit strange to people outside of the publishing world that authors and illustrators don’t directly collaborate while working on a picture book but that’s typically the norm. The publishers want to make sure the illustrator has the autonomy to make decisions about the pictures, just as the author was able to write without the influence of the illustrator. There is some back and forth of course, since it is a collaboration, but typically that is facilitated by the editors and art directors.
You have free reins to collab with another Latinx creative and they’re free and on board as well, who are you picking and what are you making?
Well, if I can be a total fan girl here, I would totally want to make a zine with Celia C. Pérez. I’m obsessed with The First Rule of Punk (and excited to dive into Strange Birds!), I love zines, and basically it would be awesome.
How does your identity affect your writing?
My identity is infused into the core of everything I write. I don’t think you can escape identity, it’s not something I can put on a shelf and say, “this time, I’m not going to take you into my writing.” It’s something that is always there, influencing the words I use, the stories I want to tell, even the structures of the families within them. Identity can be complicated, and for me, being mixed and white-passing, it is often messy. But that messiness is where my best writing comes from, it’s what makes my writing and my stories uniquely mine. We are complicated beings, without our identities, would we even have stories at all?
Who do you write for?
I write for the kid I was and for kids like me who are outside the bounds of what publishing (and the country) has traditionally considered a “Normal American Family.”
What movie(s) would you pair your book with?
Is it bad to say I have no clue? I love movies but rarely have the time to watch them between working, having a young kid and (let’s be honest) prioritizing sleep over late night binge-watching. I'm so boring these days!
Shoutout a Latinx writer or creator whom you admire!
There are so so many. If I have to pick one, I’ll go with Lorena Alvarez Gómez. I adore her illustrations and her two graphic novels, Nightlights and Hicotea are absolutely gorgeous. She also illustrates adorable picture books and just did the cover art for Claribel Ortega’s upcoming book, Ghost Squad and that is gorgeous as well.
And because I can’t help myself, can I shout out one more? Rebecca Balcárcel is amazing. I am loving her book The Other Half of Happy. The voice, the characters, the premise, it is all so good. And I just found out she is a poet too which makes me love her and it even more. I’ve found that my favorite prose books are always written by poets – I think they just know how to make the words flow.
Anything else you can share about your upcoming projects?
I’m currently illustrating a picture book for Candlewick called Mi Casa is my Home by Laurenne Sala. It is seriously the sweetest story about a Latinx family and I absolutely adore it. I am having fun dropping bits of my own family into the illustrations. I’m also working on a picture book with my husband about his experience as a child fleeing Vietnam, working with him on this story has been so special. Even if nothing ever comes of it I am happy to have had the experience of collaborating with him on something so personal.
Thread of Love is available now! A New Kind of Wild is available for pre-order!
Follow Zara on Instagram and Twitter @zarprey!
Zara González Hoang
Zara González Hoang grew up in a little bungalow in the frozen tundra of Minnesota. Surrounded by snow she spent her days dreaming, doodling and listening to the colorful stories of her Dad’s life growing up in Puerto Rico while trying to figure out where she fit in as a mixed-race Latina Jew in a sea of Scandinavians. (She’s still figuring that out.)
These days, she lives outside of DC in a magical suburban forest with her Mad Man husband, human-shaped demon and curly coated corgi. She still spends her days dreaming and doodling, but now instead of listening to stories, she’s starting to tell some of her own.
Zara is represented by Andrea Morrison at Writers House.