I really did spend most of my lunches in middle school by myself on the loner bench. Some days I had lunch in the library when even the loner bench didn’t seem safe. One day the vice principal really did try to reach out to me by complimenting my shoes.

Because I create stories by poking and prodding at the concept in my journal, asking myself endless questions. Some of the questions I scribbled during the week after those earlier entries above were: “Why did the mother go into space? Was she a scientist?”

I drew on Hawaiian history, specifically the story of Kamehameha and how he unified the islands with an armada of war canoes and soldiers. I haven’t read many stories that draw inspiration from my culture and wanted to try my hand at expanding it.

I loved the process of building Muna’s world: the social hierarchies and stereotypes that govern the lives of immigrants and othered folk in Barish; the world of writing, publishing, bookselling; the kind of story Muna would be driven to write, what obstacles she might face in pursuing her dreams; and also the intertextual bits i.e., the excerpt from Muna’s work in progress, and the references to the Halfborn series and the latest bestseller.

The Indian fig tree family is one of the most extraordinary species with whom we share this planet. Even today, in India you’ll find them growing almost anywhere—out of a wall, sprouting from a pavement, taking over entire compounds. To walk in a grove of bodhi or peepal trees is to experience the world in a way that is uniquely Indian. I’ve been in redwood forests, pine groves, and other stands but the fig trees of India have a wanton wildness that truly brings home the meaning of the word “jungle.”