Author Up Close: Mia Tsai’s Bitter Medicine

Author Mia Tsai, Photo Credit: Rebekah Chavez at Wynne Photography

Over the last few years, I’ve gained dozens of wonderful online author friends, but I’m fortunate to know today’s author personally. In fact, we have a standing monthly coffee date where we talk about writing, publishing, and everything in between. Mia’s an accomplished pianist, an orchid lover, and, of course, an author. Her debut novel, a xianxia-inspired contemporary fantasy titled  BITTER MEDICINE, will be published by Tachyon Publications in 2023. In our Q&A, Mia provides insight into the rollercoaster ride that is querying and offers an important reminder about what drives publishing.

GW: One of my favorite parts of this series is learning about an author’s origin story: the thing that propelled the author from someone who only thought about writing their debut novel to someone who actually wrote and queried it. What’s your author origin story?

MT: BITTER MEDICINE originally started life as a self-indulgent exercise wherein I fleshed out aspects of the Roland & Riddle world without needing to use the characters I had planned for a different story. I’ve had the world idea for a long time—since 2013 at least, if not earlier—but the story I’d originally wanted to tell was so narrow in scope that I found myself wondering what else was happening. So, in 2015, I decided to go exploring. I finished the original sketch draft in 2016. It kept me busy as I solo parented two young children in Taipei for three weeks.

I then laid it to rest permanently, or so I thought. But in 2019 I decided to take Alyssa Cole’s romance writing class and needed some material. I hauled out what became BITTER MEDICINE, began rewriting it, got some encouragement, kept rewriting, then submitted to a Carina Press open call—and got a request! Of course, I had to finish the manuscript. I finished it and sent it off, then began figuring out how this querying thing worked.

As I queried, which was a rollercoaster of emotions given that I had a full request on my first day and a rejection, I also applied to Pitch Wars. I wasn’t selected, but I got enough feedback to decide, despite having partials and fulls out, to rewrite half the manuscript. I completed the revision and began the second round of querying, got an offer, picked up an agent in 2020, went on sub right away, and landed the book deal in 2021. And here we are, debuting in 2023!

GW:  What do you think made your query letter and pages stand out?

MT: I like to think the sense of humor and magic system made the pages stand out! I had a pretty tight query letter that I workshopped a lot; I actually queried with three different versions of the letter because I’d get rejections back or feedback and adjust accordingly. As for the rest of the work, I have a magical calligraphy system, as well as Chinese folklore that’s less commonly referenced here in the West, so I hope curiosity and jokes kept people reading.

GW: What do you want readers to take away from reading BITTER MEDICINE?

MT: I wanted, frankly, a story centering an Asian American woman who suffers from depression and who doesn’t have to go it alone, no matter how much she thinks she should. That story is something I think we see quite rarely, though in my experience, it’s not rare at all. Asian American women suffer disproportionately from depression, but that’s not reflected much in our media, especially in genre fiction (shoutout here to Angela Mi Young Hur and Folklorn, which has depictions of depression and grief). The first rewrite of BITTER MEDICINE was actually too depressed, believe it or not, so I had to pare back the bits that were making readers blue. For the Asians out there, I want them to know they don’t have to be alone, that community is there to support and uplift them, that reaching out to get help in whatever way you need is good, and that we will all be happy to know you’re here tomorrow and tomorrow and all the days after.

GW: What’s the most important piece of advice you could give authors who are currently querying?

MT: I’ve been saying this for a while, but it’s even more salient now: Publishing is a business. Treat it as a business. Your relationship with your work cannot be the same as publishing’s relationship to your work. In other words, it’s tempting and nice to allow publishing to validate your work, but publishing was never about merit, only sales. Your query letter is a business proposal that demonstrates your view and understanding of the market, what the latest products are, and how your product, on which you have worked very hard to make competitive, slots into the market. As much as I hate comps, comps are what help show that knowledge. For example, an author comping their book to Lord of the Rings and 1984 is like a marketer saying their product will fit between the produce section and the frozen section. Figure out which aisle your book will sit in, tell the agent what products are surrounding your product, and, of course, make your product the best you can make it.

GW: What are you working on now?

MT: I am in between books right now, but I just went on submission with a post-apocalyptic science fantasy called KEY & VALE, which has picked up a film option! KEY & VALE is about a memory hunter named Key whose job it is to seek lost memories buried in the ground and bring whatever knowledge she finds back to the Museum of Human Memory. She does this through use of a hallucinogenic mushroom. Vale, Key’s guardian, is the one tasked with protecting Key when she’s most vulnerable—but if Key is unable to keep her mind together after she experiences someone else’s memories, it’s Vale’s job to kill her.

The novel after KEY & VALE is called RED ENVELOPE HUSBAND, which I’m very much looking forward to writing. It’s about a plus-sized Taiwanese American young woman named Penny whose dream it is to open a plus-size exclusive boutique in Taipei. She’s a tailor who has to make her own clothes because she doesn’t fit in what’s available, and she’s also working hard to learn the ins and outs of the industry. But then one day she picks a red envelope up from the ground. According to superstition, picking up that envelope means she’s automatically married to whoever is inside, but Penny isn’t superstitious. Unfortunately for her, there’s a very handsome prince inside who has been trapped there for a thousand years…

Many thanks to Mia for her insights and for her salient advice about the business of publishing. Full disclosure, I’ve already read KEY & VALE, and it is as wonderful as it sounds. You can learn more about Mia Tsai by visiting her website, Mia Tsai. You can pre-order BITTER MEDICINE here.

Over to you: Hearing about the business side of publishing can be tough for authors. How do you balance the creative with the very real, sometimes daunting, business side of writing?

Grace Wynter

Grace Wynter is an author, editor, and workshop facilitator. She has an MBA from Georgia State University and a Professional Certificate in Editing from the University of Chicago. She has conducted workshops for organizations such as Writer Unboxed, Wake Up and Write!, Sisters in Crime, and the Atlanta Writers Club where she is also a freelance editor for their biannual Atlanta Writers Conference. Her editing clients include traditional publishers such as Penguin Random House, Harper Collins, and Hachette, and an array of indie publishers and self-published authors. Grace is the community architect behind Tessera Creatives, an online directory that connects authors and publishers with skilled, culturally competent freelance creatives who provide services for the publishing industry.

When she’s not alternating between the Marvel and DC universes, Grace resides in Atlanta, Georgia. You can connect with her at GraceWynter.com.