Your books "The Family Cannon" and "Turtles Are Animals That Move With Their Homes" revolve around themes of family and immigration, which are ideas that are prevalent within your short story "School on Fire." How have your previous works informed the way you approached this new piece?

Themes of family and immigration are probably my obsession in writing--they're topics that won't let go of me. I find myself returning to them again and again, even if I think I'm writing about something else. And I probably find myself developing stories with those themes because that's where the most interesting fictional conflict and tension lie for me. I'm fascinated by the way displacement both ruptures and binds generations, the way children of immigrants can never really know their parents' childhood experiences and aren't supposed to--and yet, their parents may secretly (or not-so-secretly) hope that their kids know they've been given the gift of avoiding such experiences. This tension is so rich to me.

In a similar vein, how does your cultural identity affect your writing? Additionally, how do you find balance when it comes to integrating your experiences with fictional elements? 

I think my cultural identity is probably the water my writing swims in. My worldview is deeply shaped by my parents' immigrant experiences and the value they placed on their children retaining their familial language in spite of assimilating into American culture. In terms of integrating my experience with fictional elements--I think that comes from staying alert in the physical world. In my daily life, I try to take note of what I'm seeing and hearing. Later, a combination of real sensory details from the physical world (my car losing a hubcap, smoke billowing from the roof of a school) may combine with a memory or something I hear in the news to suggest some danger or tension or an interesting situation that I begin to explore with my imagination.

In addition to touching on immigration, language barriers, and domestic violence within “School on Fire,” you also touch on the reluctance to reach out for help and pose it as a potential personal risk. What do you hope readers take away from this?

I'd love a reader to understand that the story represents one fictional situation which is complex and complicated for its characters; in real life, I think we always hope that people experiencing intimate partner violence can get the resources and support they need to remove themselves to safety.

You mentioned briefly in your interview with KPBS that you gravitated toward Amy Tan's "The Joy Luck Club" for its exploration of the immigrant experience. What specifically about the immigrant experience do you find yourself discussing or reflecting on the most?  

I think about some of the commonalities of the American immigrant experience, as reflected in literature. Of course, every family is singular in its immigration experience, but there were so many parallels for me between Tan's characters and my own life--especially the parents' hopes and dreams for their American-born children, and the pressure to strive but also the pressure never to forget the "first” culture. And I definitely felt the tensions of navigating one world and language at home and another world and language beyond the home. When I read that novel, my world got both bigger and smaller--smaller in the sense of feeling less alone, feeling comforted by an entire slice of an American experience that may have seemed different than my own but was fundamentally similar in surprising ways.

You've shared that you teach literature and creative writing at the University of San Diego. How do you think teaching has altered your perspective on craft and your own writing process? Do you often get inspiration from your classes or students?

Teaching has given me the chance to keep learning. I'm always reading new stories with an eye toward how to share them with other writers in class, and that helps me read them more closely, more critically, with more awareness of craft and technique and artistry. I get tremendous sustenance from talking with writing students about literature and the writing process--it's the best job in the world. Students' energy, excitement, and passion for fiction writing fuels my own--one big feedback loop. It's great. 

What advice would you give to aspiring writers when it comes to weaving their own experiences into their storytelling? 

Their own experiences can be rich, emotionally-charged starting places from which to invent and imagine. If a writer mines her own experiences, she gives herself the great advantage of inhabiting her characters with genuine emotion. I think the fiction writer Tayari Jones once said, "If you know what it's like to be trapped in an elevator, you know what it's like to be trapped in a spaceship."

Read halina’s short story, “School on fire” in dulcet Literary magazine, vol. 1, coming soon.