Part of the reason why my folks - why any immigrant family - wants their kids to go into law or medicine is because there's the promise of reliable work. That's a powerful idea that got hammered into my head growing up: Be this thing, or else you'll starve.

Growing up as Chinese-American, as someone who experienced racism, questions of 'otherness' are always at the forefront of my mind.

Take 'Ex Machina.' Everyone said it was one of the great feminist works of science fiction. But what I found disappointing is that everything about the main female character is defined by men.

I think that comic books have appealed to female readers for years.

As for what I listen to after writing, it could be anything - but I've noticed that if the current book contains music from one tradition, it is music from another tradition that most relaxes me.

The one thing I'm really the most confident in as an artist is my songwriting ability and ear for pop music. I'm really excited to show that off. It was a side that I wasn't able to show on 'American Idol.'

America's liberal arts universities have long been safe zones for leftist thinking, protected ivory towers for the pseudo-elite who earn their livings writing papers nobody reads about gender roles in the poetry of Maya Angelou.

It's funny, because I had no intention of being in a band because I was so shy. But I loved playing music and loved writing songs. I always thought I'd be in the background and, if I did get into a band, be a backup musician.