We recently connected with Talia Tucker and have shared our conversation below.

Talia, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What sort of legacy are you hoping to build. What do you think people will say about you after you are gone, what do you hope to be remembered for?

Thinking about something I’ve created that will survive me is daunting, because when I’m writing, I very much write for the moment I’m in or the moment we’re all in as a collective. Some books are meant to make you think. Others are meant to do the opposite. The books I’ve published so far are very much the latter. They’re meant to be an escape and to give people a few hours to themselves to have a laugh. I hope that my legacy is to have made at least one person smile while they were having a hard time.

Talia, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Talia Tucker. I’m a Korean and Jamaican American author of young adult fiction from New Jersey. My first two novels, Rules for Rule Breaking (March 19, 2024) and Solo Stan (June 10, 2025), are romantic comedies published by Kokila, an imprint of Penguin Teen. My upcoming novel, a revenge dark comedy with a paranormal twist, titled Ghosted, will be published in fall 2026 by Feiwel and Friends, an imprint of Macmillan.

How I got into publishing is perhaps atypical, because unlike most authors I’ve spoken to, it wasn’t a lifelong dream for me. Books didn’t interest me in my early years, mostly because people like me were completely absent from them. When I did read, I gravitated toward fanfiction because it was so much more diverse and accessible.

The natural progression from reading fanfiction is writing it, which I did occasionally in high school and college. In my mid-twenties, the interest sparked again. An assignment in grad school required me to write a short story, for which I received a C. I was convinced it deserved better. I needed to know for sure, so I started submitting the story for publication. After a few submissions, I lost faith and decided to write something new instead. That story did eventually get accepted by a small publication.

From there, I kept pushing myself to see how far I could go. I wrote my first full-length novel and came very close to signing with an agent. Then I shelved that project and wrote Rules for Rule Breaking, which became my debut. During this process, I learned how much more diverse publishing had become, and for the first time ever, I became excited about books. I really fell in love with writing, and I can no longer see myself doing anything else.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I have a Korean mother and a Jamaican father, and being multi-ethnic, there’s a misconception that I’m able to separate my experiences by background. I suppose I can, to a degree, but like everyone else, I experience the world as a whole person. Writing Rules for Rule Breaking was the first time I deliberately tried to split my identity in half. I did the same when writing Solo Stan, which features two Black, queer characters. This was an extremely vulnerable thing for me to do because I’ve never felt quite comfortable in either identity, and I didn’t know how it would be received.

Now that both books are out, hearing from so many Korean Americans, Asians, Asian Americans, Black and queer people, and even others from different backgrounds who have told me they resonated with something in Rules for Rule Breaking and Solo Stan has been profoundly validating for me on a personal level. I think we’re all collectively trying to work through cycles of generational trauma, and it’s nice that these conversations are so out in the open now and that I’m included in them.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My overall goal is to keep creating and pushing myself. What I’m doing now is something I never even considered a possibility as a kid because of what publishing looked like. So much has changed in the last few decades, and now there are books that would have gotten me interested in reading much earlier if they had been given a chance. Publishing still isn’t where it needs to be, but by doing my part and contributing to the growing body of BIPOC stories that portray a spectrum of experiences, I hope it will eventually get there.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.talia-tucker.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taliatuck/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/taliatuckerauthor
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/talia-tucker-62885835/
• Twitter: https://x.com/taliatuck
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvj8MUhKMuXJ8NWIqtElXrA
• Other: https://taliatuck.substack.com/
  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/22874287.Talia_Tucker

Image Credits

Bex Glendining
Minji Kwon