Dear Addie: An Interview with the Author of Dear Twin // Emma Rhodes
An interview with Addie Tsai, presented in co-operation with moorehype.
Addie Tsai’s latest novel (and her first young adult novel) Dear Twin tells of Poppy, whose twin sister Lola has mysteriously vanished, and whose father is depressed as a result. The novel carries a sub-narrative formed by the letters that Poppy writes to her twin sister, hoping that she will come home. Throughout all of this, Poppy forms a loving relationship with her girlfriend, Juniper. In Dear Twin, Poppy learns to navigate all the different facets of her identity as a twin and as a biracial queer teenager, and it is anything but simple. Tsai has written in many different genres and forms of literature, and Dear Twin is no less of a success; it is an intelligent and emotional look into the different identities a person has, and how to live with all of these different, and often clashing, parts of ourselves.
Addie Tsai teaches courses in literature, creative writing, dance, and humanities at Houston Community College. She collaborated with Dominic Walsh Dance Theatre on Victor Frankenstein and Camille Claudel, among others. Addie holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College and a PhD in Dance from Texas Woman’s University. Her writing has been published in Banago Street, The Offing, The Collagist, The Feminist Wire, Nat. Brut., and elsewhere. She is the Nonfiction Editor at The Grief Diaries and Senior Associate Editor in Poetry at The Flexible Persona. Emma Rhodes investigates.
Emma Rhodes: What inspired this book?
Addie Tsai: I was inspired to write this book because I grew frustrated seeing how twins were only background tropes in young adult literature, and never the centre of their own stories. At the same time, there was a story in my personal life that I had longed to investigate, and it seemed more appropriate to couch it in fiction.
ER: Are the letters interspersed throughout real letters? Is this based on yours or another’s own experiences?
AT: The letters are fictitious, but they come out of real feelings and experiences I have had.
ER: Where did you first read the epigraph at the beginning of the text and why did you choose it to go with this novel?
AT: I've had this epigraph for years, and a good friend once sent it to me, and it's always stuck with me.
ER: What do you think is the main difference between public and personal identity, and is that difference significant? I am thinking of mirror twins being opposite but nobody recognizing this, so in public the two twins are the same but in private they know that they are opposite—what is the significance of these two opposite identities within a single individual?
AT: I would say that there is less difference between public and personal identity than one might wish. There's this Diane Arbus quote I really like that comes to mind: "What's left after what one isn't is taken away in what one is." That's what I think about the difference between public and private personas—it's about what one leaves in, and what one takes out. In terms of twins, I guess I would say it's less about one's public and private identity than it is about one's perception of twins and what one really is.
ER: Do you think that this story is relatable still to siblings who are not twins?
AT: Yes.
ER: Do you have a special item that you don’t share, like Poppy’s stationery that is only used for special occasions? Do you think it is common for people to keep certain items from siblings or friends?
AT: I plead the fifth! It's less that she's keeping the stationery fromLola and more that she's keeping something for herself, especially when it's hard to even have her own identity and face.
ER: Who drew the images that are interspersed throughout the novel? Did you initially want this story presented with the letters in a different font and style, and with images, or was that design decision made after the fact?
AT: Keet Geniza, who also designed the cover, drew the images. I love them! I always wanted the letters to have a feeling of being actual letters, separate objects that were different from the narrative.
ER: Is there a cultural problem with treating twins as a novelty to showoff? If so, is the same problem present for only children or non-twin siblings? I am thinking of Baba dressing Poppy and Lola alike to show them off, and their mother casting “both her twin girls as things.”
AT: I think anytime people are treated as objects it is a cultural problem.If we look at the Other and the history of the Other being commodified, objectified, and oppressed, I think it's not hard to see how this can also extend to twins.
ER: Is the Instagram account “go lightly into that goodnight” a real account?
AT: It is! Although at the moment it doesn't have much on it beyond what was in the book, and a few images that were taken out.
ER: Do you like the YA genre? What is your favourite genre/style to write in? Do you think Dear Twin could be told through any other genre?
AT: I love the YA genre! I don't have a favourite, actually, as I like to write in multiple genres and I like to hybridize and to cross genres. I think Dear Twin could be told in all the genres!
ER: Is the order of the letters as they’re presented significant? They get longer and more emotional as the book goes on.
AT: The letters are a kind of sub-narrative in the book, so they operate just like any narrative in the sense that the stakes rise and the emotional weight and tension comes to a head just like you would see in any story.
ER: Is the marginalization of being a twin similar to that of being queer? Is Poppy then doubly-marginalized? (Triply because she’s also Asian)?
AT: It's hard to say that the marginalization of being a twin is similar to any other marginalization. Not to mention, I would not be at jeopardy of losing my job, getting assaulted, being publicly shamed, or the many, many other kinds of discrimination that queer people have had to face for many years for simply being a twin. That being said, there is a kind of liminal space that one operates in, or at least Ido, as a twin, and so in that way, I do feel there is a kind of negotiation of body and identity that the two subject hoods share. In terms of your second question, I think that Poppy is experiencing multiple kinds of marginalizations and liminalities just as you asked—as a twin and an individual, as queer, and as both Asian and white.
Emma Rhodes is a fourth-year student at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, NB. She is completing an honours in English Literature with a concentration in Creative Writing. She is an intern at both Goose Lane Editions and moorehype publicity, and her work has been published in The Aquinian, Sonder Midwest Magazine, Plenitude Magazine, and The New Brunswick Literary Encyclopedia.