We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mia Tsai a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Mia, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What was one of the most important lessons you learned in school? Why did that lesson stick with you?

In my non-writing life, I’m a musician with a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over years of study (and also a long career). Improvisation has been central aspect of my schooling, and in the process of learning and getting better, I began applying principles of improvisation to my life in general. I studied and continue to study Dalcroze eurhythmics, which is, in short, a method through which movement is used to teach music. A Dalcroze instructor will improvise music for the students during lessons, and that takes a lot of training to do. Dalcroze and improvisation taught me that I don’t have to run out of choices, that mistakes are, as Bob Ross said, happy little accidents. They’re also inspiration. Mistakes are other paths you didn’t know you could take toward a goal, and to turn a mistake around is to be present in the process. Improvisation also taught me that what I think of as the end doesn’t have to be the end. Changing my mindset about mistakes, understanding there are always paths around barriers, and being present in the process haven’t been easy lessons to learn. I’m impatient by nature, and I want something to be finished yesterday. But they’ve been so valuable in the writing journey, and with each new novel I work on, I have to learn them anew.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m an author of speculative fiction and romance, and my debut novel, a contemporary fantasy with lots of romance titled BITTER MEDICINE, released in March of this year through Tachyon Publications. It’s picked up a Publisher’s Weekly starred review and has been featured in Lit Hub, NetGalley, BookPage, the New York Times Review of Books, and many other places.

I find the most compelling stories happening between people, which is why romance is such a draw for me. Everything I write is character focused and character driven, even when romance is relegated to the back burner or is missing altogether. When it comes to questions of nations, magic, rulers, and all other things that fantasy as a genre comprises, I come back every time to the people at the center of the conflicts. And sometimes, not even at the center–a peripheral interpersonal issue can be just as compelling as the turning of the grand gears in the center of the conflict.

I’m a lifelong reader and bookworm and there isn’t a day that goes by that I’m not reading something. I’m always happy to talk about books, and they don’t necessarily have to be mine. There are so many happy moments to be found when you have a beloved book in common with someone else! As a reader, I love fantasy and romance, of course, but I also love a good, chewy nonfiction tome, preferably medical nonfiction, although my research for my books takes me through plenty of history. I’ll also never say I have a single favorite book. There are just too many I love.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

Creativity is something everyone can do. It’s not relegated to the prodigiously talented. I actually don’t like it when someone says that I’m so talented; it’s not talent that got me to where I am. Talent is a seed, and some seeds grow slower and some seeds grow faster, but all seeds need the right conditions to sprout. And then the seed’s job is done. Creativity is very much like this. Anyone can be creative or have the desire to learn music, write a book, draw a picture. It’s the hard work and perseverance after that brings you across the finish line.

This is in large part why so many creatives are upset with AI/LLMs and people who defend them and the use of them. The computer did not have to carve out its own path and find its own voice. The person writing the prompt didn’t have to go through years of figuring out how to improve and self-edit to get to the product that’s being sold. It sounds like I and other creatives are bitter that the LLM people didn’t suffer, but it’s not that at all. Just as the unique movement of amniotic fluid in a womb forms unique fingerprints, it’s the process and the journey that shapes you and gives you the point of view only you can have as a creative. LLMs can only ever take from the journeys of other people. They don’t produce art. They produce facsimiles.

Art is hard. People quit. The ones who stay are the ones who wake up every day and come back to it. I’m not sure, some days, what makes me come back to it, only that I don’t know what else I’d do if I didn’t. I’ve taken breaks from music and writing before and I always end up coming back because I have a question that needs to be answered. Sometimes, it’s “What happens next?” Other times, it’s “How can I be better today than yesterday?” And sometimes, it’s “Here I am again. Why?”

Art is labor, not talent. It’s problem-solving that looks like to others that you’re doing nothing, except that’s a lie because you’re trying to overcome whatever it is that’s holding you back from making your art. It’s studying how other people have done it; it’s reading so, so many books; it’s writing words people will never see; it’s coming back every time after every frustrating day and every spirit-breaking rejection and putting your butt in the chair and getting the work done. For some, it’s sinking time and money into schooling. Art is discipline, and art is a process, and art in all its forms is what makes us human.

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

I think the most rewarding aspect of being a creative is meeting other people. Art should be shared, and I love meeting everyone who crosses my path. I’ve built wonderful friendships with other authors, and I’ve also built wonderful relationships with readers and reviewers. It’s always touching hearing how words I’ve written have affected others. And it’s always fun geeking out about other books or other authors on the panel or at the signing. I believe very much in supporting all the creatives around me, so the more folks I meet, the more people I can shout out when the time is right.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.miatsai.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/mia.tsai.books
• Twitter: twitter.com/itsamia
• Other: linktr.ee/miatsai, tinyletter.com/miatsai, https://bsky.app/profile/itsamia.bsky.social

Image Credits
Rebekah Chavez Wynne, Wynne Photography Jialing Pan, cover artist