Eric: 00:03

Welcome to Former Colleagues. I'm Eric Yang. I worked in finance for years, got what I thought was my dream job, and I'm an actor now. In this show, I chat with fellow artists, entrepreneurs, and interesting people who took the leap from the corporate world to chase their creative dreams. So, did you ever have that one distant cousin your parents would not stop comparing you to?

Eric: 00:22

With the perfect grades, the top schools, and then the fancy jobs. And then she leaves her fancy job to become a New York Times bestselling author and Hollywood producer director? Well, the details may vary but that is indeed more or less the journey my guest today Abigail Hing Wen has taken. You may know her for her best selling Loveboat, Taipei series and its two sequels and its Paramount plus original film adaptation which she executive produced and soon to come her middle grade debut The Veil. In today's show we talk about Abigail's winding path to where she sits now at the nexus of tech, storytelling, and entertainment.

Eric: 01:07

So obviously it's a big achievement getting into Harvard and you grew up in Ohio,

Abigail: 01:12

Ohio, yeah

Eric: 01:13

yeah. And so it flipped from being like, you're kind of the only one too.

Abigail: 01:17

So it was the most Asian Americans I'd ever seen. I found a community, and that was was new and different for me. And I think that experience is partly what's reflected in the Loveboat, Taipei books of an Asian American girl, like, learning about her culture from other kids and realizing, oh, wow. There's a lot here. There's lot here.

Abigail: 01:32

That's really cool. I didn't know what I wanted to do going to Harvard. I started off chemistry, actually. And then I moved into environmental science and public policy, which is partway between science and humanities. And then I switched all the way to government.

Abigail: 01:44

And I was involved extracurricularly, extracurricular, like I sang with the Radcliffe Choral Society. I didn't dance, but I knew that that was an option. And I think I just didn't think I could take the arts seriously once I went to college, even though I'd done a lot in high school. You know, I did Science Olympiad, but I also was in the show choir, orchestra, the dance squad. And I played piano.

Abigail: 02:02

And I did ballet outside of school for many years, like twelve years for a lot of those. I just thought I had to give it all up when I went to college and study. So I went to Harvard thinking I was going to study government, maybe be a judge, or go into politics. And I was working on Capitol Hill for a couple years and realized, like, wow, this life is just not for me. There was a day when I called my dad, and I was I felt so terrible.

Abigail: 02:27

Was like, I'm letting everyone down back home who wanted me to go forth and be this representative for the community. And I like, I just can't do this. This is I can't hack this life. And he said, it's Okay. And that was really freeing for him to say that to me and for me to hear that.

Abigail: 02:42

I still didn't know what it was I wanted to do at that point. I went on to law school. I was interested in social justice, and I was kind of thinking about how I could do that in all these different fields. There was a period I was interested in finance and social justice. So we did some microfinance work.

Abigail: 02:56

But when I was thinking about being a law professor, I'd kind of done everything on that path. So I clerked on the DC Circuit. I was practicing. I'd even won this national award for my law school law review article. But I just couldn't bear myself to take the last step, which is to write a big long legal article and go on the market.

Abigail: 03:14

But I had an idea for a fantasy novel swimming around in my head, and my husband was like, you know, you're so excited. Why don't you just try it? And so I did, and the novel just came pouring out of me, that's when I realized that there was something there.

Eric: 03:24

Was that what ultimately became The Vale?

Abigail: 03:26

There are pieces of it that have ended up in The Vale, really more like this tessellated pattern that I have appear a couple times. But that's about it, really. The rest of it, I think I'm still saving that one. There's probably four more projects between me and that one, but eventually it'd be great to revamp it and publish it.

Eric: 03:43

I think it's pretty normal when you have a very meteoric ascent in your career, as you did with law and then finance, that imposter syndrome enters the conversation as it does with the creative world. Does it manifest differently in either of those worlds for you? Or did you feel like more in a confidence approaching one vocation versus another?

Abigail: 04:04

That's a great question. I have definitely wrestled with it in all my industries. I think part of it is we just didn't have models ahead of us, like people who looked like us who had accomplished these things that I was trying to accomplish. So even like early on, like, oh, to be a leader, that, you know, I didn't see that many Asian American leaders, like visible faces. To be an actor, like, there just weren't that many Asian American actors.

Abigail: 04:27

And even, like, the reactions of other people, remember saying, oh, there was a period in law school. I was thinking, I might start something with my husband, and someone laughed. They're like, oh, that would be really hilarious. And they said something about like, it'd be called Wen and Wen, which is our last name. And that's exactly what it would be called.

Abigail: 04:43

But the way they said it made it sound like it wasn't real.

Eric: 04:46

Yeah, why is that punchline? Like there's plenty of law firms out there. It's just like Smith & Smith

Abigail: 04:53

or Right, exactly. But at the time that they just thought it was hilarious and unfathomable, and I think you hear that over time, like you grew up with that, and you just know that these things that you aspire to aren't realistic. And that's, I think, what holds us back. It's internal, but it's also externally imposed. And a lot of it's just implicit bias that's innate in the world around us and in ourselves.

Abigail: 05:13

And so that's partly what I had to overcome. So the benefit for me of having to overcome it in Silicon Valley is that when I got to Hollywood and I ran into it again, the implicit bias, I'm like, oh, there it is. I could recognize it. And instead of it be something that I internalized, I could say, no, actually, here we are. This is the same exact situation.

Abigail: 05:31

And I can stand more confidently in the work that I'm doing. But it's definitely still a struggle. Day by day, there's always something that's not going the way you want it. And I always have to rethink how is it that I'm going to approach this to regain that confidence to keep moving forward.

Eric: 05:49

Yeah. It goes back to what you said about having no models for this. I think so many people I talk to just find themselves on somewhat of a career autopilot. And corporate America makes it incredibly easy sometimes. They'll just kind of dangle a carrot of, like, associate after two years, like, director managing whatever that structure is.

Eric: 06:08

So that's why it makes me so happy to see the diverse range of options available to the characters in your books, especially for Asian Americans. One thing I've noticed in my journey coming from corporate into the acting world is that I think the way I approach things is very different. When I was still in college and I was going for a finance job, I was an econ major, everything felt very goal oriented. Like I have to get this score, I have to get this internship, get this performance review or something like that. It's very marked each step.

Eric: 06:40

It's like the rungs of a ladder. Whereas for acting, it's been more like, it's kind of hard to come in, I think, for pretty much any creative field and just be like, I'm going to get this award or I'm going get published in this way or something. I'm going to get this show or this role. It's more free form. It's kind of like, I'm going to do what I can.

Eric: 06:58

I'm going to send my work out there. I'm going to audition. And then whatever comes, comes. And we just take it from there.

Abigail: 07:05

Yeah. Yeah. Definitely, you have to make your own path. And every path is really different. And the market and the time that you're in, there's so much luck.

Abigail: 07:13

There's so much just chance encounters that you meet the right person at the right time. And so part of it, I think, I do tell people just keep putting yourself out there because then you increase the odds that you're going to have collisions with each other and with the right people creatively. But it just takes time too to find those people.

Eric: 07:28

It's interesting that you mentioned luck because I wanted to ask you about the concept of meritocracy and how that changes between these two worlds, right? I think there's a lot more if you're applying to law school or something. There's all these data points people can look at like, oh, I have all these writing samples of hers, these classes, these recommendations from professors. Whereas for acting or when you're shopping a manuscript to someone, it's just that, right? And there's so many different factors that can impact your success there that are out of your control and have nothing to do with the quality of your writing or the quality of your acting.

Abigail: 08:01

Absolutely. Yeah, I think a lot of it is just someone personally relates to your work, maybe because they've gone through a similar experience or you stand for themes that they've been wrestling with themselves or that they feel really strongly or passionate about. So a lot of it is just, it takes time to figure out who those people are and to find them. Someone actually advised me early on that you could do Hollywood with a great number of people or a few number of people, and I can see that. I've seen people, like, just find their pod, people that they resonate with, and they just do project after project together.

Abigail: 08:32

And because they have all the pieces that they need to do that. And others, like, you might have to do, like or you might enjoy doing, just, working with lots of different groups and doing different types of creative projects.

Eric: 08:41

Piece of advice I got pretty early on when I was still working my nine to five, I was talking to a former mentor of mine, an acting teacher I had studied with in college. He said it was very important as an artist to find your tribe.

Abigail: 08:54

Like

Eric: 08:56

find the people that understand you, that don't feel like you have to compromise your art for, and will support and guide you in the ways that you need in, like, this very amorphous, nonlinear world. What does that look like for you?

Abigail: 09:08

Yeah, it's been trial and error, for sure. When I started off as a novelist, I went to the Society for Children's Books, Writers, and Illustrators, and I happened to meet Aileen Wong. I. W. Gregorio is her, the name that she publishes under.

Abigail: 09:21

And she was a resident in med school at Stanford while I was a young associate. And we were both, like, new moms. So that's how we bonded. We were both, like, professionals in these very high, like, very intense fields who wanted to write young adult novels. Totally.

Abigail: 09:35

So we became critique partners. And she and I both brought in different people. And so that was, like, our community for a while, like, just trading manuscripts and helping each other figure out how to get published. And then when I moved into Hollywood, for a while I just felt very lonely because it was just, I just came in because my book was made into a movie and I didn't know anybody. And so I've been really fortunate to join a couple programs in Hollywood that I feel like I finally, this year I've found my tribe.

Abigail: 09:59

But it's fun when you find those synergies. And when you find those people, you hang on to them. Because I think in some ways, like, to be in the art world or to be, like, to stand out in the art world, we're all a little weird. So finding the other weird people that are, like, similarly weird, it's hard. But yeah, when you do find them, then the bond is so tight.

Eric: 10:16

And at what point does the MFA come into play?

Abigail: 10:18

So I didn't get that till years later. I was, you know, I wrote that novel, wrote I another novel while I was on maternity leave with my second child. And then I decided to go back to law to finish my, like, kind of finish my training. And at that point, I think I sent my second novel into the world, like, to see if I could get an agent. And I did get one.

Abigail: 10:37

And that's been the story of my journey. Like, I just took these baby steps. And at every moment when I could have turned away from it, something happened that kept me going. So I got an agent as I went back to work. And while I was working at the law firm, unable to write, she was subbing that book into the world.

Abigail: 10:55

But it would still take four more novels that I buried along the way before I got to Loveboat, Taipei published. And I think it was with my third novel that I decided to go and get my MFA, because I felt like I hit a wall. My agent was only able to give me so much feedback on my work, and I just didn't know how to make it better. So I did a distance program with Vermont College of Fine Arts, which was one of the top children's writing programs, and had fabulous faculty. And I told them when I went in, like, don't want to just polish my work.

Abigail: 11:25

I want to go deep with the characters and the story. And I learned it all there. So The Veil was my creative thesis at Vermont College of Fine Arts. So I got to do it under the wise guidance of Martine Leavitt. She is a Canadian author.

Abigail: 11:50

If she was not a Canadian author, she would be winning all the awards in America. But her goal for us was to write a whole book in, you know, our, I don't know what, was like six months. And so I did this whole book. I think I was just fascinated by AI generation. Like, I was working in Silicon Valley, all the new technologies were being incubated then, even though the rest of the world wasn't aware of it.

Abigail: 12:10

And there was a lot of ethical questions, too. And so those are the types of questions I wanted to explore in a story like this, which is this inventor family has created an AI generated virtual fantasy world, and their own kid has lived in this world for six years, training the model and building out the elves community, the Blue Forest, the Clover Fields, building his castle and having adventures like Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin. But it's in a VR world, and what are the implications of that? And so those are some of the human themes that I wanted to explore at the same time that I feel like it's my way of democratizing access to the technology, which is part of my thesis when I was working in tech. Was trying to just really equip people with this information that is very much a part of all our futures.

Eric: 12:52

A theme in a lot of your writing, like with Kisses, Codes, & Conspiracies and The Vale, is technology.

Abigail: 12:58

I love that I'm able to keep the technology in it, because I think that would be normally the first to go. Doesn't really belong in a lay book, for a lay audience. Again, but that's my thing. And I really try to explain it in a way that's accessible to everybody. I'm able to keep the family story, which for Asian Americans, like, your family is very tight knit.

Abigail: 13:16

Your identity often is tied up in the family. And in this story, mom, dad, and kid are the ones who built this world together. I think if I was publishing it more traditionally, and I even had some of those conversations, normally you would take out that adult storyline, but I'm able to keep it in this one, which is actually more in line with movies. Like, movies in this space for kids always have, like, multiple storylines so that the family can watch it together. But for some reason in books, it's more siloed.

Abigail: 13:41

So I feel like that's actually that's only paid off for this book already. Like, it's so much easier to adapt to a film in space because the story is already set up for a family friendly film.

Eric: 13:51

Yeah. I think it's beautiful when you have two completely, maybe on the surface, separate interests, technology and writing novels. And when you can kind of sit at the nexus and bring something that no one versed in just one of those sides could have brought, then there's a kind of alchemy there that produces something like this.

Abigail: 14:12

Absolutely. And I feel like I did benefit from doing that kind of really intense training. Like, I was trained on Wall Street. So I'm thankful for that, and I bring all those skills to the film world now. In filmmaking, it turned out I didn't know that this was that I was working towards this.

Abigail: 14:26

But film is, really, it's the confluence of creative storytelling, finance, and technology. And those are my three worlds. And then having the law degree has been really beneficial because I'm able to review my own contracts. And for me, like, my thesis and all the people I work with, I want it to be fair. Hollywood traditionally hasn't been fair.

Abigail: 14:42

Like, there's some people who, like, make windfalls and other who don't. And so I'm thinking, like, how can we structure something financially that would reward people for the contributions when you don't know what those contributions are from the beginning? I'm not afraid to dive into a problem like that because I worked on structured financing at Sullivan and Cromwell. And it only clicked for me in a conversation maybe about a month ago. Was like, oh, that's why I'm fearless about jumping into these situations because I'm like, we'll figure out how to structure this in a way that makes everyone happy and is fair versus I think people who don't have that background, which is most people, they it's a little bit more intimidating.

Abigail: 15:17

Like, maybe we should hold off on doing any of these things until we settle this first, and I don't feel a need to do that.

Eric: 15:22

So it's it's great to hear that your previous life as a lawyer has helped with making these projects happen in an equitable way. How have they influenced your writing itself?

Abigail: 15:32

Yeah, so they're very much a part of the content, too. So Kisses, Code & Conspiracies, as you know, is about three kids in Palo Alto who just, they grow up really savvy about technology. And Tan Lee in particular is really good, like coding and cracking codes. And that was like some of my family's story, just seeing my kids grow up in the Bay Area. And so that was fun for me to like kind of share about this world that not everyone is aware of.

Abigail: 15:56

It's like a subculture. But at the same time, like, entertain and then give these Asian American kids the spotlight in a story that's really just about an adventure and being chased through Silicon Valley and getting to explore, like, first love and for Tan Lee, impostor syndrome. Like, how can he come to believe in himself when he's been really hurt in the past, and he's grown up in a culture where everybody seems really amazing around him.

Eric: 16:22

You mentioned that your writing schedule for a long time was very hectic, right? You had your full time job, you're working like, what, eighty hour weeks sometimes? And you just squeezed like a few hours here, like you had your laptop with you at all times.

Abigail: 16:34

Yep, still do.

Eric: 16:37

I mean, it's good when inspiration strikes, right? But you're a full time novelist now. How did that transition come? Did you feel like you'd achieved certain milestones? Was it a level of confidence in yourself, or was it purely just I need time for my craft now.

Eric: 16:53

I want to be able to just sit in it for ten hours and just think.

Abigail: 16:56

Yeah, yeah. It was definitely a process. Like, it took me so long to leave my corporate job, even though I had already hit The New York Times list and the movie was in the works. But it really was when it greenlit, the movie was greenlit, and it meant that I would be going to Taiwan to film it for a couple months. That's when I finally had the courage, like, I'm gonna go do this.

Abigail: 17:17

I do tell people it's very hard to make a living as a writer. Like even New York Times bestsellers. And I was told this in my MFA program, like they brought in New York Times bestselling authors, and they're like, you make a lot of money for a short period of time, and then it dries up, and you have to find other ways. Yeah. I think that's true for the arts.

Abigail: 17:32

A gig economy. Like, as much as we prefer it not to be, as the artists, that's kind of the way it is. And that's the reality that we live in. So I think I was aware of that. And I didn't want to just jump ship.

Abigail: 17:43

But my husband, I think he could see me doing all this work in tech and kind of struggling to find that balance. And he said to me one time, he's like, everybody wants to make a movie, and you actually are making a movie. And what are you doing? Like, wasting your time on all this stuff. And so I'm really thankful that he pushed me.

Abigail: 18:01

He pushed me to write the novel to begin with and then to like, leave. He's like, you should just go do this. Like, this is like what you're good at, and you're just so lucky that you can do this. So, like, please, go do it. Yeah.

Abigail: 18:11

And I did, and when I left, was like, wow, why didn't I leave sooner? There are definitely ways that you can make it work, and for me, I do the writing and the producing together. And then I find now that now that I have five, four, almost five books in the world, like each of these projects, they just spin up so much work. And I cannot believe how much I'm working now. And it's weird because it's all, like, strangely self generated.

Abigail: 18:31

But like with Kisses, Codes & Conspiracies, we've got the two game adaptations that we're in conversations around, and there's actually more game adaptations that we haven't been able to touch. And then there is, I'm writing the script, and we're bringing a director on for that one. And then for The Vale, as you know, we did the short film, that was my directorial debut with Lea Salonga, who is my childhood girlhood hero.

Eric: 18:52

Amazing.

Abigail: 18:52

And now we're starting to do more with it. So there's just endless things going on, and I don't look back at all.

Eric: 19:00

But has there ever been any point where the writing or the editing or anything around it has felt like a job?

Abigail: 19:06

Yeah. There are definitely moments I hit, like now even, where I'm like, wow, I'm starting to feel a little burnt out. It's just too much going on. And so then I give myself permission to step back and like, Okay, I'm going to take today off, or I'll go walk around a museum, or it'll be Okay if I spend the day doing a bunch of kid things because I know that I've got a lot going on. And I have to remind myself, because I'm always kind of going for the next thing.

Abigail: 19:30

I have such big ambitions. Because I'm always going for the next thing, I'm always getting rejected. And so that can be hard too in demoralizing. And so I have to remind myself, like, how far I've come and where I was before. This is very comforting for most aspiring writers to hear, but I don't write more now that I've left my corporate job.

Abigail: 19:45

And I found that to be the case for most writers. Like, you can only generate work for about three hours a day, and then you gotta do other things. You gotta go live life. I know writers that will write three hours, read three hours. This is true for, like, Stephen King, Philip Pullman, like, writers who've been who've written so many, many, many books.

Abigail: 20:03

I can edit forever. So then having more capacity does mean I can if I need to buckle down and just, like, go through the entire novel over, like, two days, I can do that. But the actual generation, I tell people, like, if don't give up your day job, like, but carve out time every day because that's the well just somehow replenishes every day. And so I do my best to try to capture that well every day. And piece by piece, you'll like you can write a novel in a year.

Eric: 20:26

Would it be fair to say that it was sort of necessary to have this very unconventional winding path to where you are today? Or to put it another way, if you're giving advice to someone that maybe is doing something that doesn't feel like truly them right now at some desk job.

Abigail: 20:42

Yeah. Do they stick whatever

Eric: 20:43

you're left earlier or like what what would you change if anything?

Abigail: 20:46

Yeah. You know, it's so hard to say. I really do think everyone has their own path. You know, I did stay longer than I wanted to, but there was a period when I was raising children, and I've seen this with other working parents. There's a period when you just want to be stable for your little kids, and so maybe that's worth it.

Abigail: 21:01

There was a time, and with the gals who I grew up with, none of us got promoted for years after we had children. And I had that. I had that, I think it was seven years I didn't get promoted, six, seven, eight, maybe more. I just put up with it because I didn't care. I was writing the books, I was raising the kids.

Abigail: 21:17

But at some point, not getting promoted started to hold me back because when I'm interacting with the outside world, they don't want to interact with a junior person with a junior title. They want to interact with more senior people. But I was senior. I just didn't have the title to go with it. Even, like, understanding how to talk about that, I feel like Asian Americans didn't know how to talk about, like why their promotion was important to them.

Abigail: 21:34

Like for me to play a bigger role at this company or for me to play the role that I am playing, I need this promotion. I need this title. And so I'm glad that I learned all those things too. And so maybe it took suffering a little bit to like, for me to find those skills.

Eric: 21:46

We've talked about the hard skills that you learned that have come to fruition in your current life. But I think there's also something to be said for the soft skills too. If I took away one thing from the horrible, horrible time that was like me trying to network and get my first job out of college, was that a lot of the times, if you just cold email someone and you have like a valid reason for doing so, like people tend to want to help you. And that's come to help me a lot in the creative world.

Abigail: 22:13

Absolutely, yeah. I think people really do want to help, and when you are able to provide guidance, this is how I need help, and you ask them in return, like how can I help you, or what is it that you're looking for? And even if you're not the one to help them, just knowing what they need and having that top of mind helps you to help them when you network with other people. All of us sit at the intersection of our lives, our own lives. And that is my biggest pitch to everyone is like, do what only you can do.

Abigail: 22:37

Because that's, I think, what makes you that's your unique contribution that you make as an artist, as an actor, as a writer, creator.

Eric: 22:46

Thank you so much for listening to our first episode. Be sure to preorder The Vale from Barnes & Noble or your local bookstore before it drops on September 16. The best way to follow Abigail is by joining her newsletter at abigailhingwen.com or on Instagram abigailhingwen. Also be sure to check out The Vale book launch events in your area such as at Brooklyn Heights Public Library on September 18, Princeton Public Library on September 19 and also in Austin, Los Altos and Los Angeles. If you liked our show you can follow us on Instagram at @formercolleaguespod or on our website formercolleaguespod.com.

Eric: 23:21

Former Colleagues is produced and edited by Charlie Gillette and Eric Yang, theme music by Eric Yang and TK the Architect, logo art by Andie Yoon. Special thanks to Kevin Yang, Elliott Eglash, and Henry Butler.