One of my first memories is writing "novels" by hand as a little girl, silly little once-upon-a-time stories with horribly drawn illustrations, pieces of 8.5 by 11 paper stapled together unceremoniously. I don't know if I even still have them. They were terrible. But all dreams have to start somewhere, don't they?
I love storytelling; I always have. I love the escapism, I love the creativity, I love the adventure - adventure, because writing is an adventure in every sense of the word - emotional, action-packed, sensitive, cynical, and everything in between. For me, it's a vivid escape into a place that feels larger-than-life, almost more real than reality. But as time went on, I learned there was more to my love of writing than just that.
Every person has a story to tell. For me, it's a story of growing up fascinated by science and engineering, caught between cultures as a half-Chinese, half-American girl, shadowed by two parents with PhDs in science from Stanford. It's a story of coming to college as a naive home-schooler and going through sexual assault, physical assault, and struggling through a chronic medical disability.
a book is a dream you hold in your hand
(Neil Gaiman)
My goal is to reflect these experiences and perspectives within my writing - to tell the story of my grandfather's sister, who was lost when their family fled Mao's Communist regime, and my uncle, who experienced firsthand all the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. To showcase the uncertainties, privileges, and inner conflict of growing up biracial, sandwiched between cultures. To speak up about the things that have happened to me, so that others might know they are not alone; that we can fight these things together.
So I took my teenaged dystopias and young-adult love triangles, and reimagined them into universes colored by my experiences - futures written in a world dominated by East Asian and other non-Western perspectives; historical fictions based on my own Chinese family; literary fictions grounded in my own life. Those are the universes and manuscripts represented on this website. Hopefully you will find them as enjoyable to read as they were for me to write.
While I have already discarded 12 manuscripts I deemed subpar, I have multiple manuscripts ready to query and many more in the writing.
I hope to update this website's blog periodically with samples of those novels, as well as short stories and blog posts on my writing experiences and what I've learned thus far.
While I am not yet represented by an agent, I hope to be soon. I am also always taking on alpha and beta readers to help me with quality control on both my novels themselves and the query letters. If you are interested in joining my team, please contact me at alethea@aletheakatherine.com; I would be honored to have you along for the ride.
Alethea has also written as a paid blogger for OneClass Blog. She is currently seeking a literary agent for representation. She is open to any and all writing gigs, and is also more than happy to provide further samples of her writing. To contact her directly, send an email to alethea@aletheakatherine.com.
some of my favorite fiction:
The Foundation Trilogy (Isaac Asimov)
The Immortalists (Chloe Benjamin)
Black Matter (Blake Crouch)
All the Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr)
The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
The Girl on the Train (Paula Hawkins)
Last Night in Montreal and Station Eleven (Emily St. John Mandel)
The Night Circus (Erin Morgenstern)
The Stormlight Archive series (Brandon Sanderson)
The Hate U Give (Angie Thomas)
The Lord of the Rings series (J.R.R. Tolkien)
The Lying Game and The Woman in Cabin 10 (Ruth Ware)
The Martian (Andy Weir)