Karen Bao
Karen Jialu Bao does science in the lab, then goes home and writes about it. Having earned her Ph.D. in neuroscience from Harvard University, she studies mosquito brains by blasting them with an electron beam. She has eight ear piercings for no reason. Her favorite activities include cooking, tending her plants, singing, and playing her violin. She is the author of Pangu’s Shadow, the Dove Chronicles trilogy, and a contributor to the YA mental health anthology Ab(solutely) Normal.
Interview
What was your favorite book when you were a child?
Wait For Me by An Na
What’s your favorite line from a book?
“Even if it means oblivion, friends, I’ll welcome it, because it won’t be nothing. We’ll be alive again in a thousand blades of grass, and a million leaves; we’ll be falling in the raindrops and blowing in the fresh breeze; we’ll be glittering in the dew under the stars and the moon out there in the physical world, which is our true home and always was.”― Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass
Who are your top three favorite authors or illustrators?
It’s so hard to choose. Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, NK Jemisin, Fonda Lee, most recently.
Why did you want to become an author or illustrator?
I liked creating people and places in my head. Writing stories was the only way to share my inner world with other people, so I learned to do that.
Do you have any advice for future authors or illustrators?
Living life is just as important as practicing writing. In addition to knowing how to write, you need to know WHAT to write.
