Author on pain of trans Asian Americans, joyfully queer stories

Growing up in Southern California, Ryka Aoki dreamed of being a writer, but her Japanese American parents expected her to study the sciences or something technical.

Her father, a mechanic who hailed from Hawaii’s Big Island, asked her if she knew of any Asian writers, and admittedly she didn’t. “My parents told me writers don’t make money,” she told NBC Asian America.

So Aoki acquiesced and studied chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles, becoming the first person in her family to graduate from college.

She later became a prolific and award-winning writer, publishing “Seasonal Velocities,” a collection of poems, stories and essays, the novel, “He Mele A Hilo,” the poetry book, “Why Dust Shall Never Settle Upon This Soul,” and the children’s book, “The Great Space Adventure.”

Aoki’s latest work, the critically acclaimed science fiction and fantasy novel “Light From Uncommon Stars,” follows the intertwined lives of three Asian American women: Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway; Shizuka Satomi, a violin teacher who made a deal with the devil; and Lan Tran, a retired starship captain and interstellar refugee who runs a doughnut shop with her family.

Packed with meditations on music, identity, found family, immigrant culture and redemption, the book is set in the Asian American enclave of the L.A.-adjacent San Gabriel Valley, where Aoki, who is trans, was raised, and weaves a story that’s joyfully queer.