Today we’d like to introduce you to Sarah Kuhn.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Sarah. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I’ve always made up stories — when I was in middle school, my friends and I created our own photocopied ‘zine that we used to cover topics we were really interested in, like the new Baby-Sitters Club book or who cheated on their math test. I ended up going into journalism because someone told me it was a job where you got paid to write every day. But it took me many years to be brave enough to tell my own stories through fiction. Growing up, I never saw stories that starred women of color, Asian American women, mixed race women — women who looked like me. My first stories featured white protagonists because it was so hard for me to visualize a story where I was the star. I noticed, though, that whenever I wrote a story with a white protagonist, readers assumed she was Asian because I am. So I started a novel with a girl like me at the center of the story — HEROINE COMPLEX, about the put-upon personal assistant to the world’s greatest superheroine. I wanted to write something like the stories I had grown up loving, but with an Asian American protagonist who gets to have adventures and romance and all kinds of fun. That novel sold and spawned a whole series and now I write books, comic books, and the occasional screenplay — and almost all of them star Asian American women. I like to imagine how much my younger self’s mind would be blown by this.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
There are always challenges inherent to being a woman of color in the world — and that holds true in any industry, including publishing. I tend to feel like I have to be flawless in everything, that I can’t fail because I have to be twice as good just to get a foot in the door. And there are certainly the daily struggles of explaining your identity over and over again, of being called “niche” because you don’t write books about white people, of feeling like you have to perform your pain. It gets exhausting, but I am always encouraged by fellow WOC writers who are out there making it happen — we lift each other up.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
I think I’m known for writing a variety of Asian American heroines, from the ones I created for HEROINE COMPLEX to well-known licensed characters like Cassandra Cain, who’s the Asian Batgirl — I wrote a graphic novel about her for DC with fellow Angeleno artist Nicole Goux. I think people also associate me with wearing loud patterns and colors, which I post a lot about on social media — I’m just trying to reach my final form as an Asian Auntie.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Sometimes I wish I’d been brave enough to start writing fiction earlier and had become a brilliant teen novelist or something. But I actually think it’s probably for the best that no one has been subjected to my teenage writing, at least on a larger scale (apologies to my high school teachers). I do wish I had learned to value myself earlier and to realize that I’m important and worthy of being the center of a story. It’s really only recently that I’ve become comfortable with advocating for my work, accepting praise without dismissing it, and pushing back when I need to. I have met so many wonderful teen readers, and I think part of all this was that I realized I want them to know that they are important and that it’s absolutely okay — more than okay — to stand up for yourself and celebrate your work.
Contact Info:
- Website: heroinecomplex.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/sarahkuhnbooks
- Twitter: twitters.com/sarahkuhn
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