Created October 18, 2024 by Tanja Bauerle
Dr. Fawzia Mai Tung is a BIPOC author of Chinese Muslim background, and a retired psychiatrist, journalist, and educator who grew up internationally, attending 13 schools before university, in five countries and four languages. After retiring, she turned to full-time writing, naturally gravitating to writing children’s books as a mother of seven and grandmother of now ten. The May Fairy is a series of middle grade picture books written as conversational retelling of fairy tales and fairy-tale-like biographies. The first book in the series is the award-winning The Wonderful Tale of Donkey Skin. Other books are in the works, including a four-part memoir series and a collection of Chinese legends and stories.
Six Quick Interview Questions with DR. FAWZIA MAI TUNG
1. What is one thing we should know about you that's not in your bio?
I am a passionate gardener. At this time, I’m growing a food forest in my front, side and back yards. I’m trying to spread the word about planting trees and forests. This is how we can help reverse climate change.
2. What should we know that will make us want to run out and get our hands on a copy of your book?
Both adults and children have reported loving it, mentioning the beautiful illustrations and the child’s voice being heard in particular. Its format lends itself easily to reading together, as well as to reader’s theater. I was amazed to find how enjoyable it was to ADHD children and especially the large group of “reluctant readers”! (This is probably due to the built-in scaffolding towards metacognition.)
3. What is one thing you learned/discovered about your writing process or the publishing industry while you worked on this book?
First, I discovered that my life of telling stories to children intruded so much into my writing that I was forced to give those children life and voice.
Secondly, the publishing industry has not only changed drastically in the past few decades but is constantly changing even now. Becoming a successful writer today also means becoming a publishing and marketing expert. I’m going to assume I have another 30 years to live so I can learn the ropes!
4. If you live in a scene in your story, what moment would that be and why?
Definitely the scene where the prince is peeping through the keyhole! I so enjoyed writing it! So in the original Perrault fairy tale, this prince visits a farm and peeps through a keyhole. In my retelling, the listener/child is horrified by such a behavior and reminds the storytelling grandmother that it’s not good to do so. Realizing the educational value of this comment, Grandma “Nainai” then makes one of the golden droplets flying off from the princess’s magic Sun Dress hit the prince’s eye and blow up into a butterfly, causing him to become blind in one eye. The child is horrified by this turn of events and begs Nainai not to let him become blind since “he didn’t mean it”. I so love how the child identifies with the prince here. So then Nainai decides to have the princess’s door blown ajar by the wind, so that the prince got a glance of her quite “by accident”
5. Finish this sentence: I could never have written this book had it not been for...
… all the children in my life whom I’ve told stories to: My younger siblings and cousins, the children from the various embassies we had to look after, my childhood playmates, my baby-sitting customers, my students, and now my grandchildren. But mostly, my father, who introduced me to storytelling through daily sessions of reading and retelling of classics from Chinese, English, and American literature in my childhood
Website: (Constant Contact) https://fawzia-mai-tung-writer.constantcontactsites.com/
Facebook Writer's Page: Fawzia Mai Tung Writer
Instagram: Fawzia Mai Tung
iPub Page: Donkey Skin