how this book happened

a book deal announcement!

Last week, Publishers Weekly and Publishers Marketplace announced my debut middle-grade book: Seven: The Courage, Artistry, and Teamwork of BTS (Atheneum), coming out summer 2026. The book is a gift book by fans for fans of BTS, illustrated by the extremely talented and wonderful Maja, a retrospective exploring the history of the K-pop group and how the dreams of seven boys from Korea became the dreams of millions of fans around the world.

[Caption: the Publishers Marketplace announcement of the book deal with a beautiful illustration by Maja of BTS roleplaying as Jin’s bodyguard in the background.]

That’s the elevator pitch, anyway. The deal announcement is something that every author dreams of! And it was definitely a dream come true! But it was also so much more than that. In this tiny square screenshot of the announcement, you can’t see two-plus years of work, 6 years of being a fan, many months of anxiety as the fandom shifts before our eyes, countless revisions, dreams of being an author abandoned then revived.

I didn’t become a K-pop fan until my twenties. I had been aware of them, but I didn’t have the right person to ferry me into fandom, as is so often needed. The only K-pop fan I knew in high school was someone who I had a complicated friendship with, and I grew up on the east coast with a lot of internalized racism: my town was more than 2/3 immigrant families, and almost all of my classmates and I were first- or second-generation. Here in California, I have met people who are sixth-generation or seventh-generation Asian American, some of whom said they wanted to be actors and artists! Wow! That was not the case where I was growing up. When I told people I wanted to be a writer, I was always met with: “good luck with that!” and, worse, “you’re a bad Asian.”

If people were going to call me a “bad Asian,” I was determined to be one. I joined musical theatre. I quit piano and learned Italian opera (lol, I thought that was being rebellious). I declared an English major as soon as I could.

I had dreamed of becoming a fiction writer since I was in third grade and read Gail Carson Levine’s The Two Princesses of Bamarre. The way that book made me feel—seen, heard, emboldened, reassured, heartbroken, healed—was how I wanted to make others feel with my storytelling.

Along the way, my dream of becoming an author was put to the side. In college, a professor told me that I couldn’t be both a creative writer and a literary scholar, my indecision written off as a “symptom of my youth.” But I’ve always wanted to be both! Sadly, I took his advice to heart and when I started my PhD in 2016, I felt like to be a “serious scholar,” I had to give creative writing up, or at least put it on the back-burner. I was already a young Asian woman studying British literary history—I was already not taken seriously. Why would I add more to my own plate?

I worked hard. I read a lot, I took copious hand-written notes, I asked questions. I was the only person in my family pursuing a career like this. I didn’t even know what theory was.

During my second year of graduate school, knee-deep (quite literally) in stacks of books and seminar work, I befriended a first-year graduate student, now one of my closest friends and collaborators, Andrea Acosta. She reminded me of sunshine, to put it as truthfully as possible, and I had this feeling that one gets only a few times in their lifetime, if they’re lucky: we were meant to be in each other’s lives. We joke now that I basically courted and wooed her hard, and part of that courtship was getting to know each other through media. Because of her, I started listening to a bunch of BTS songs—she likened their music videos to watching ballet in how skillful they were and how aesthetically pleasing it all was—and became, especially through watching episodes of Run BTS, an ARMY.

The saying among ARMYs (BTS fans) is that you find BTS when you need them most. This has been true. It has also been true of my entire career. Every major step in my path has happened serendipitously, by following joy and intuition.

My friendship with Andrea and my love for BTS taught me to find joy in my work, to be kinder to myself, to let go of others’ expectations. To lead with self-love, and to speak myself. I found joy in BTS’s music and their live videos in which they speak directly, candidly to fans. I found joy and comfort and hope in their friendships with each other. Through lockdown and the advent of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, their creative work kept me going.

Their creative work also inspired me to return to creative work. During lockdown, I no longer felt the pressure to write: I just wanted to. My dream of becoming an author slowly reawakened. I wrote short stories and poetry with a drive I hadn’t had since I was little, and even drafted a couple of novels.

In 2022, when BTS left for their mandatory enlistment, I received an email from Feather Flores, an editor at Atheneum. She had read my poetry and had been looking for some time for someone who was both ARMY and a lyrical writer. Apparently, she had chosen me.

When such a thing lands in your lap, you think you’d jump at the opportunity and rejoice uninhibitedly. But I was wracked with anxiety: How could I be the one? I wanted to do the boys justice. How could I encapsulate their story and our fandom’s story into one picture book? Was that even possible? How could I speak myself without speaking for them?

But Feather told me that it was because I was so deliberate about these questions that she knew I was the right one. It is a responsibility I bear with pride and care.

Fast-forward to now: I’m working with the best, all-ARMY team there is. Feather is such an exemplar of an editor, and Maja, the illustrator, is so thoughtful in each of their illustrations.

How funny life is! I became a BTS fan by happenstance. I returned to creative writing by happenstance. Joy and community led me, unexpectedly, to where I am now.

We hope that this book will be a spot of joy for you during these troubling and dark times. In line with our belief that art should be healing, rather than harming, Maja and I are happy to announce that the book is BDS friendly and a portion of our proceeds will go to Palestinian ARMYs. We want to thank ARMY4Palestine for paving the way for fandom activism & advocacy.

You can add our book to Goodreads here! Add “Want to Read”—this really helps creators of color, as it signals to publishers that there is interest in diverse work!