Hello API Romance Authors!

This week, we are featuring "Marry. Die. Repeat" by embeamor, one of our Favorites from the Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month Contest in May 2024! If you'd like to read this story, we encourage you to check it out in our Never Forgotten reading list.

❀ ❀ ❀ ❀ ❀

About the Author:

Em Beamor is a hopeless romantic. Born and raised in Manila by a single mother who forbade dating until after college, Em's passion for writing blossomed through secret love letters. Although her mom discovered and threw out most of them, one 'letter' won a high school essay writing contest. Since joining Wattpad in 2014, she became a Top 10 finalist in the Sour Patch Kids Single Awareness Day contest (2015) and has written poetry and short stories inspired by her love life and those around her. (Shh, don't tell her mom.) She has lived in Los Angeles, Seattle, and now resides in Dallas with her husband and mom. When she's not reading or writing, she enjoys Asian dramas, cooking, yoga, swimming, and traveling. Above all, she treasures spending time with her nieces and nephews.

Interview:

1. What influenced your story, Marry. Die. Repeat? What inspired you to write it?

I've been in the mood for Chinese period dramas as of late. So when I read the words, "crown prince," in the prompt, I immediately thought of ancient China and arranged marriages. All that was left to do was to research the goddess who I wanted to base my character on. As I unraveled her backstory, it set the core plot of Marry. Die. Repeat. in motion. It was a tough call to trim her story to stay within the word limit, but this decision sparked the idea for a companion story project in the future and let me focus on the kind of love I wanted to write in the first place: a love that transcends lifetimes.

2. What is your writing process?

Recently, I've been kind of obsessed with the first line. I'll already have a plot in mind, I might have even written an outline from start to finish, but I can't write the story itself without coming up with the initial line. And it never comes easy. So, instead of staring at a blinking cursor on a blank screen, I design the book cover. If that doesn't do it, then I design the section break graphic, chapter banners, and the end banner. And if that still doesn't work, then I research to round out the details I have in my outline. Sometimes, or eventually, I find myself once again staring at that blinking cursor, waiting for the first line to come to me and open the floodgates. After a couple of rounds of edits, I read the story aloud, making final adjustments to any lines or scenes that didn't flow quite right. And then, I would finally click on 'Publish.'

3. How do you identify within the Asian American and Pacific Islander community and how has your heritage shaped the person you are today?

When I tell people that I'm Filipino, they often ask, "And what?" After all, it's not uncommon to have a diverse background in a country that was colonized for nearly 400 years. The truth is, I have Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese ancestry. Birthright citizenship aside, to me, being Filipino has always encompassed having a mixed heritage. Therefore, I'm proud of my Filipino identity. If only I had American roots as well—oh, but wait, I'm actually an American citizen now. So, I've got the medley of colonizers in my heritage and history. Although this initially caused an existential crisis, I have since grown to embrace and celebrate it. Embracing my roots has made me more compassionate and open-minded, genuinely curious to learn about others without judgment. 

4. Does your family have any traditions that are important to you? Feel free to share at least one experience here!

Kinship honorifics have a special place in my heart. The use of "ate" and "kuya," which means older sister and older brother in Tagalog, is so much more than just words—it's about building deep familial and cultural bonds. When my younger siblings call me "ate," it's like a natural signal of the respect, closeness, and affection that these titles represent. They are also power tools in love and courtship. When I refer to someone as "kuya," it's a way of drawing a clear line between friendship and romance. It's my way of saying that I see them as a big brother—a mentor and protector—rather than a romantic interest.

5. If you could introduce something from your culture to someone else, what would it be and why? It can be a tradition/custom, food, music, or anything else that comes to mind!

Food. This is the automatic Filipino answer, isn't it? They'd have my Filipino card revoked if I said otherwise. Food is a big part of our culture. We invite everyone to share a meal whether or not there's even enough food to go around. It's a compulsion; a way to foster a sense of community. It's a love language.

One of the best ways to share food is through kamayan. Kamay means hand in Tagalog and while we primarily eat with our dominant hand and leave the other clean for drinkware, or to eat the soup/stew with a spoon, the kamayan feast refers to food laid out on banana leaves. Kamayan includes our staple side dish of garlic rice and if you can't smell the garlic when you enter the establishment, just turn around and go because 90% of Filipino dishes start with onions and garlic. I'd order shrimp sinigang (shrimp with heads perfectly boiled in a tamarind soup base), kare-kare (oxtail and beef tripe stewed in creamy peanut sauce), grilled liempo (pork belly marinated soy sauce and calamansi, the Philippine lemon), chicken inasal (grilled chicken marinated in calamansi, vinegar, and lemongrass, basted and served with annatto oil made from chicken fat), lumpia (fried spring roll with ground pork and vegetable filling), ensaladang talong (grilled eggplant with no skin topped with chopped onions and tomatoes then drizzled with spiced vinegar), pancit canton (stir-fry egg noodles), and you know what, a chop suey (stir-fry vegetables) with tofu for when you want to take a break from all the umami-packed dishes. The main attraction of kamayan is the lechon baboy, a pig slowly roasted over charcoal for three to four hours to ensure tender and juicy insides underneath an unbelievably crispy and delicious skin. You dip this in liver sauce (the poor man's creamy paté) and/or spiced vinegar, and you'd be surprised how it's suddenly down to the bones. Of course, the table wouldn't be complete without tropical fruits like mango and watermelon. There's so much more, but I'll stop here because I've already made myself hungry.

6. What does AAPI Heritage Month mean to you?

AAPI Heritage Month has transformed for me over the years. It used to be a time for showcasing Filipino culture to others familiar with my country of origin. However, now it's much more than that. It's a time for me to immerse myself in my diverse heritage and infuse those learnings and experiences into my storytelling. My goal is to become a voice that represents our shared identity and collective experiences and to make a positive contribution that makes us proud of the multi-faceted beauty of our culture.

7. How do your experiences as an AAPI author shape your stories? Do you take inspiration from your culture to tell your story? You may talk about 1-2 stories here.

When I started writing on Wattpad, my surroundings and experiences subconsciously influenced the stories I created. I was still bumbling with the complexities of being Filipino-American, so the ethnicities of my characters were ambiguous. They were simply American and the reader's imagination could take over the rest. Last year marked a turning point for me in embracing my cultural inspiration. It all started with a story featuring Japanese characters for the Sakura Blossoms contest, and then I followed it with a story showcasing Filipino characters for AAPIHM 2023. I was even motivated to explore a fantasy romance influenced by Filipino mythology, which, although not finalized, prepared me for Marry. Die. Repeat.

My most recent work, Between the Lines, is based on traditional Filipino courtship. I'm still learning to be unapologetic with how my protagonists are AAPI. But I know that they have to be, or it wouldn't make sense. Take, for example, the "Great Wall;" unless you're familiar with the Chinese-Filipino community, you'd think that I'm referring to the famous landmark in China. However, in a romance involving a Chinese-Filipino, it is the no-need-to-be-spoken rule that your future romantic partner must have Chinese blood coursing through their veins, or else. And if I backslide into writing non-descript American characters, without any inferences to my culture, then what would remain of this story is something that even I wouldn't want you to read.

❀ ❀ ❀ ❀ ❀

Thank you embeamor for giving us the opportunity to interview you and chat more about your book!

We'll see you all in the next Book of the Month.