7-13-25 — Special Interview with Ai Jiang
- Christina Pfeiffer
- Jul 13
- 5 min read
We will catch up on the 52 Recommendations next week but this week I had the absolute honor of interviewing one of my top authors to fangirl over, Ai Jiang. Not only is she already a well-known and distinguished author, but a sweetheart to boot!
Let’s get into it.
CP: What was the catalyst that started your path as a writer? Did you start with short stories, novels, novellas?
AJ: My love for books growing up I suppose. It started with Scholastic book orders during elementary school where I’d pick the books that came with fun toy items and stuffed animals, but my mom would always make me finish reading the books before I could buy another. I wasn’t a very good liar, and still aren’t, so I ended up finishing every book I’d bought and well… loving all of them. Eventually, reading spurred in me a desire to write my own books, but when I was younger, I’d never imagined it could be a viable career and wrote for fun, sharing work with a couple of friends in middle school until we all graduated and drifted apart.
As for professional writing, I started with short stories, wanting to hone my craft at the line level and at smaller scale narratives before moving onto long form.
CP: Both LINGHUN and A PALACE NEAR THE WIND (APNtW) are rooted in familial love as well as generational secrets or deception. LINGHUN with the need to see the ghost of a loved one (the past) and APNtW with how the wedding was a deception (the future). Can you speak more about those plots in the stories?
AJ: One thing I’ve been thinking much about is the way people in my family are so vocal yet also so silent about their problems. In that they are vocal about problems that are seemingly and comparatively inconsequential, and yet they suppress the most pressing issues that chew away at their mental health. This led me to contemplating the reason why that is, and why we often hide from those closest to us, and whether it is to protect them or is it to protect ourselves? More often than not, it’s both. Those who are most able to deceive us are not strangers and predators, but those closest to us, those who we trust and show our vulnerabilities. I wanted to draw on these thoughts in the character relationship dynamics of both LINGHUN and PALACE.
CP: Where did the premise for LINGHUN originate? It’s such a beautiful and yet soul-crushing play on the haunted house trope. Was there a movie or other media that inspired it?
AJ: It began as a short flash piece I’d written for an audio anthology called Ghostlore, and I was contemplating the general idea of ghosts and the way they haunt the living, but then I wondered about all the ghosts that become tethered to the living world because of the way those still alive can’t let them go: the ghosts bound by grief, the ghosts who are being haunted instead that take the form of memories stuck in time, ungrowing. I think the book that inspired Linghun most is Beloved by Toni Morrison.
CP: In APNtW, the wedding isn’t what the reader is led to believe. I was shocked and gasped when I learned the truth. Did this plot twist come to you in the beginning stages of the story or reveal itself as you wrote?
AJ: This particular plot twist was one that already came to me in the beginning stages of putting together this story. I think for me, I often know my beginnings, endings, and the largest events I want to occur in a book, but as to how we get to those events and endings, usually those come through discovery as I write.
CP: What are a few books that your fans can read to understand more about the poetic style of your writing as well as the imagery?
AJ: If you mean books/authors I’ve been inspired by, I’d say Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go and Klara and the Sun, The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, Beloved by Toni Morrison, To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf.
CP: If you could co-write with any author, alive or dead, who would it be?
AJ: I’ve thought about this a lot previously, but I’ve realized that I would be an absolutely terrible person to co-write with because of how chaotic my process is, so I wouldn’t subject anyone to it unless they willingly desire to experience said chaos.
CP: In both LINGHUN and APNtW, the main characters are strong, independent minded young women who would do anything for their family but fight to forge their own path. Traditions are respected but also methodically questioned. Are there specific people these characteristics are taken from? I ask because they feel so personal but also handled with care and reverence.
AJ: I would say this is drawn from myself, and from every woman in my family, because every one of them is so strong in their own ways, and yet, they are offered no room for their vulnerabilities to breathe and no room for them to question their status and responsibilities and duties in life. There are some who firm-mindedly follow traditions as though they’re iron-clad, never questioning whether they can live their lives elsewise; some who question but don’t dare to defy; others who actively question and defy and risk being smothered for acts that might seen as transgression.
CP: In both novellas, which had the most heartbreaking scene to write and what was the scene?
AJ: I would say the most heartbreaking scene to write in LINGHUN would be Mrs. reflecting on the name her husband had given her and the name she’d given him in return. For PALACE, I’d say chapter 12, because this is when Lufeng is betrayed by the one person who she had always trusted, looked to as a role model, only to have her unwavering faith shattered.
CP: Who have you read in the past year that deserves more recognition?
AJ: I would say A.D. Sui. They are incredible at weaving complex characters and relationships while sustaining propulsive and intriguing plotlines.
CP: Are there any upcoming projects that you can tell us about?
AJ: The second book in the Natural Engines duology, following A Palace Near the Wind, is titled A River From the Sky, forthcoming April 2026 with Titan Books. And later in fall 2026, my debut novel An Empire Above Opera is coming out as well. Both of which I’m incredibly excited about!
BIO: Ai Jiang is a Chinese-Canadian writer, Ignyte, Bram Stoker, and Nebula Award winner, and Hugo, Astounding, Locus, Aurora, and BFSA Award finalist from Changle, Fujian currently residing in Toronto, Ontario. Her work can be found in F&SF, The Dark, The Masters Review, among others. She is the recipient of Odyssey Workshop's 2022 Fresh Voices Scholarship and the author of A Palace Near the Wind, Linghun and I AM AI. Find her at www.aijiang.ca
Check out her books below:
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