Happy STS! What real-world things inspire your writing? Are there historical events or folk customs or locations that are reflected in your work or characters?
happy STS! thanks for the ask :)
my works take a lot of inspiration from chinese culture! multiple of my novels are inspired by historical periods of china (ming/wanli for r&r and tang/wu zhao for birchlorn), as well as various cnovel tropes (birchlorn largely, but also efaw), because i was born and raised in china, and i have a strong connection to it still.
besides that, various novels of mine have turkish influences—r&r's pov character and family have turkish heritage and observe various muslim traditions/festivals, and two out of three of the main characters for efaw are inspired by turkish culture (technically not turkish because they're in SPAAAAAAAAAACE in a futuristic setting), because one thing that's always frustrated me is the fact that turkish/inspired characters are almost never found in english-language novels (or really any novels that aren't turkish-language novels).
