The Nerd Daily contributor Mimi recently had the chance to sit down with Misa Sugiura, beloved author of YA contemporaries such as It’s Not Like It’s a Secret, This Time Will be Different and the upcoming Love and Other Natural Disasters about Nozomi and her summer of love in San Francisco. We got to ask Misa about her writing process, generational culture clash and upcoming projects!
Hi, Misa! Thanks for joining us! Why don’t you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Sure! I’m a second generation Japanese American, which means my parents immigrated and I was born in the U.S. I grew up in the Midwest, but I’ve lived in California for most of my adult life, and I love it here. I’m really good at slicing and chopping vegetables, my favorite song to sing for karaoke is “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” and I have bad shoulders from years of swimming and playing water polo.
Now, tell us about Love & Other Natural Disasters! What can readers expect?
The story features a girl, Nozomi, who is in love with romance and is an eternal optimist. When she meets a gorgeous girl who’s coming off a painful breakup, Nozomi sees a perfect rom-com fake dating opportunity and jumps on it, knowing that in movies and books, the fake couple becomes real in the end. Of course, things don’t turn out quite the way she thinks they will. I set the story in San Francisco, which I think is such a romantic city, so there are lots of SF moments, and plenty of tropey rom-com features: a meet cute, bike rides, boat rides, cable-car rides, delicious food, a live concert, a baking disaster, and a formal gala!
Love & Other Natural Disasters is your third book – how has the writing process changed for you? What has been the biggest joy of writing this story?
My second book was torture to write—I doubted myself at nearly every turn. This one was also difficult (I have a feeling I will doubt myself every time I write something new) but I didn’t spend quite so much time announcing to my family that I had made a huge mistake and that I needed to quit writing altogether. I really enjoyed leaning into a book whose central premise was light and fun, as opposed to the slightly more serious premises of my other two books. It was a challenge—it turns out that light, fun stories take just as much work as more serious ones—but I liked making myself laugh as I wrote.
In the center of your book is, of course, love. Nozomi encounters different kinds of love and all the challenges that come with it – from appearances to secrets to working on yourself as much as on your relationship. If Nozomi were to watch a romcom before the book’s events take place and watch it afterward (the movie is your choice), how do you envision her stance on love changing?
I immediately thought of Always Be My Maybe, which has two Asian leads—Sasha is sophisticated and accomplished, Marcus is sort of schlubby and insecure—and it takes place in San Francisco. She’d also love The Half of It, a teen rom-com about queer girl that involves scheming and subterfuge gone awry. Before the events of the book take place, Nozomi would identify pretty heavily with Marcus, but on a rewatch after the events of the book, I think she’d definitely yell at Marcus to a) have some self-respect and b) open his eyes to what he has in Sasha.
Nozomi reminded me a lot of Lara Jean Covey from To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. Do you think, if those two characters ever met, that they would be instantaneous friends?
I think Lara Jean is a little bit more practical than Nozomi; although they are both dreamers, Lara Jean works really hard to keep her dreams under control. But I think she and Nozomi would see that romantic spark in each other and gravitate toward each other for sure. I have a feeling that all Lara Jean would need was a little nudge from Nozomi, and they’d be dreaming up all kinds of nutty romantic shenanigans!
Nozomi’s brother Max was such a show stealer for me – I loved how he supported Nozomi but also made clear she knew how much of a dumbass she sometimes was when it came to love. What was your favorite scene to write between the two?
I love Max! I had such fun with Nozomi and Max’s relationship, and writing their scenes was one of my favorite parts of writing this book overall, especially when he pushes her buttons to make her mad for his own entertainment. I think my favorite scene is just after they visit an elder care community with their grandmother, and they have a conversation about their parents, and about Nozomi’s love life. I tried to show how he doesn’t have any patience for Nozomi’s insistence on closing her eyes to the truth, but that his irritation with her comes from a good place.
Dela does this art installation that features wishes and dreams written on beautiful (and painstakingly folded) paper cranes. From all the wishes you could write on one, what wish would you most want to become reality?
Hmm, that’s a tough one. I’m quite content and happy in my life, so my wish would be for my kids to grow up to be happy and content. Is that selfish? Maybe I should wish for an end to poverty and world hunger. Okay, I’ve changed my mind. Despite the fact that it’s kind of a cliché, I would wish for an end to poverty and world hunger.
Nozomi’s grandmother Baba has an antiquated stance on the LGBTQIAP+ community, despite her son having married a man. I loved how you approached this intergenerational culture clash with Nozomi questioning whether she should come out to her grandmother. What was the most challenging part to get right with this topic? What do you hope readers will take away from Nozomi’s family?
The most challenging thing for me was to make Baba lovable, or at least sympathetic, despite her stubborn refusal to embrace her son’s LGBTQ identity. I needed to show why Nozomi, who is queer, would want to continue to have a relationship with this woman. I went back and forth about where the relationship would end up. What I hope that readers will take away from the relationships in Nozomi’s family is that not everyone and not every relationship can fit neatly into clear categories like good/bad or loving/hateful. Sometimes we have to compromise our positions, and sometimes we have to hold our ground and protect ourselves, and neither decision is easy, wrong, or irreversible.
With Love and Other Natural Disasters releasing soon, are you already working on another project? If so, can you share any tidbits with us?
I am working on something really exciting that I can’t talk about at the moment, but there should be an announcement coming very soon!
Last but not least, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
So many! I’ll keep it to three.
NOT MY PROBLEM by Ciara Smyth is about a queer girl who hires herself out to fix other people’s problems with inventive—and sometimes extreme—solutions as a way to avoid facing her own problems at home. Ciara has a kind of low-key-but-hilarious sense of humor, and she also gets right to the emotional heart of things.
LUCK OF THE TITANIC by Stacey Lee is a historical novel about a Chinese girl who sneaks aboard the Titanic on a mission to find her brother and make a living as a circus performer in New York City. There were eight real-life Chinese men aboard the Titanic, and Stacey paints an incredible picture of this iconic voyage from their erased perspective.
I recently re-read SEVENTEEN SYLLABLES by Hisaye Yamamoto, and it is a master class in stories where you find yourself sympathizing with every character, even the most horrible antagonists. She addresses feminist issues, inter-racial racism, the disconnect between parents and kids (especially immigrant parents and their kids) and is a genius at writing casual throwaway lines that reveal deep insights.
