Tiffany Hawk

Tiffany Hawk is writer living near Washington D.C. whose work has appeared in such places as The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, National Geographic Traveler and on NPR’s “All Things Considered.” Her debut novel, Love Me Anyway, is a darkly funny look into the emotional heart of the airline industry, with all its allure, loneliness, and ever-present temptations.

From the author's Q & A with Jocelyn Eikenburg at the Speaking of China blog:

In a blog post about Love Me Anyway, you mentioned: “I fear it would be a challenge to cast Tien, the married man who throws Emily’s life into a tailspin. Hollywood isn’t known for embracing Asian males as romantic leads (I could devote an entire post to that prejudice).” Was your own personal interest in seeing positive portrayals of Asian men — including as romantic leads — part of the reason you chose to have Emily and Tien fall in love?

Absolutely. The initial inspiration for the Tien character was less political and more personal – he was partially based on a great love of mine, who happened to be Asian. Or maybe he didn’t even “just happen” to be Asian, maybe I was drawn to him by his worldliness and his sexy accent and even his complicated, war-torn background. Either way, when it came to the book, I wrote a few different versions of the male lead, partly to disguise the real life muse and partly because other people were concerned about marketability. In the end, the Vietnamese character was much more compelling from a literary perspective, and then from a marketing perspective, I did begin to feel political. To anyone who won’t buy a book because it has an Asian lover – first, well, that’s pretty messed up. And, second...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Tiffany Hawk's website.

My Book, The Movie: Love Me Anyway.

The Page 69 Test: Love Me Anyway.

--Marshal Zeringue