Q&A With Gloria Chao 

Gloria Chao is an award-winning author and screenwriter. Gloria’s books are American Panda, Our Wayward Fate, Rent A Boyfriend, When You Wish Upon a Lantern, Ex Marks The Spot & coming out on June 24^th The Ex-Girlfriend Murder Club! I’m so excited about doing this Q&A with Gloria! 

Q: Gloria, would you please give a brief description of each of your books beginning with The Ex-Girlfriend Murder Club? Mystery is one of my many favorite genres and I do enjoy humor in stories! 

A: The Ex-Girlfriend Murder Club: Three women discover they’re dating the same man and band together to get revenge, only to find his body. With motive and a crime scene covered in their DNA, they now have to solve his murder before they go down for it. Unfortunately, as they dig into their shared ex’s life, they realize that everyone in it had a reason to want him dead.

This is the first book in the Hu Done It Mystery series (named after protagonist Kathryn Hu). The sequel, The Mortal Enemy Murder Club, will be out in July 2026. I had the most fun writing this humorous mystery, and I hope it shows on the page!

Ex Marks the Spot: Gemma Sun discovers a puzzle in her estranged grandfather’s will that takes her on a treasure hunt through Taiwan and forces her to work with her ex, Xander Pan. With a rivals-to-lovers romance, puzzles the reader can solve, family secrets, a summer program with a large cast, and my favorite Taiwanese sights and food, this adventure is my love letter to my family’s home of Taiwan and to puzzles, games, and puns. 

When You Wish Upon a Lantern: When Liya learns that her family’s wishing lantern shop in Chicago’s Chinatown is struggling, she teams up with the boy from the mooncake bakery next door to grant wishes for the customers in secret. With multigenerational friendships, a tight-knit community, a childhood-friends-to-lover romance, and all my favorite holidays, folk tales, traditions, and food, this is a contemporary story that feels like magic.

Rent a Boyfriend: Inspired by a real practice in some Asian countries, Chloe Wang hires a fake boyfriend from Rent for Your ‘Rents to introduce to her parents so she won’t have to date the boy they’re trying to set her up with. Unfortunately, after introducing the fake aspiring surgeon to her family, she falls for the real guy behind the role and her carefully curated life begins to unravel.

Our Wayward Fate: Ali Chu is a teen outcast who is simultaneously swept up in a whirlwind romance and down a rabbit hole of dark family secrets when another Taiwanese family moves to her small, predominantly white Midwestern town and her mother forbids her from dating the new boy. Snippets of a love story from nineteenth-century China (a retelling of the Chinese folktale The Butterly Lovers) are interspersed with Ali’s narrative and intertwined with her fate.

American Panda: Mei Lu’s parents want her to become a doctor and marry a Taiwanese Ivy Leaguer, but she hates germs and has a crush on her Japanese classmate. With four starred trade reviews, this is a hilarious, heartfelt tale of how, unlike the panda, life isn’t always so black and white.

Q: Where do your ideas for characters and worlds within your stories come from? 

A: Starting out, some of my book ideas were inspired by my life. I wrote American Panda when I was switching careers from dentist to writer, and the cultural humor was, shall we say, very easy to come up with—but not at all based on any real people from my life, not at all.

Other ideas were inspired by the real world. When I learned that some people in Asian countries felt so much pressure to bring home the perfect significant other that they were hiring actors, my first thought was, I get it. So, I brought the practice to an Asian American community in the US and created a company that specialized in training fake boyfriends. I also made it a dual POV so you can learn about what it’s like to be a fake boyfriend on the job and the kind of training you go through.

With The Ex-Girlfriend Murder Club, I was brainstorming a book idea where three women dating the same man get revenge on him, and when I was trying to raise the stakes, I asked, What if he dies? And everything clicked. This premise was so much fun because it lent itself to so many shenanigans. At every point, I asked myself, What’s the worst and funniest way this next thing can happen? Which, as an example, is why in the first chapter, Kat learns about Tucker’s (first) other girlfriend by walking in, half-naked, on him proposing to her. Then I asked, How can I make this even more fun? So, after Olivia runs out, Tucker turns around and proposes to Kat with the same ring and same generic proposal.

Q: For your writing process do you consider yourself a plotter where you plan everything in advance or a pantser where you write the story as it goes along and the story is discovered that way?

A: I’m a plantser—somewhere in between the two. I have at least the character arcs and big beats plotted out in advance, but with room to discover along the way because that’s often where the magic comes from. The amount of plotting varies depending on the book. Because Ex Marks the Spot was filled with treasure hunt puzzles that interacted with the character arcs as well as the secondary summer program storyline, I figured out the puzzles before writing. And with The Ex-Girlfriend Murder Club and its sequel, The Mortal Enemy Murder Club, because they’re mysteries, I plotted out the details of the murder before drafting so I could plant clues along the way.

Q: How long does it take to write a book and what is the most difficult part of the writing and revision process?

A: In general, if I sell a book on proposal (meaning it is outlined with 3-6 sample chapters written), it usually takes me about 2 months to complete the first draft. 

The most difficult part of the writing and revision process changes per book. For Ex Marks the Spot, I ended up rewriting the rivals-to-lovers romance three times before sending a draft to my editor. It was a delicate balance of giving the characters enough conflict and banter, but also in a way that the reader would still ship them. I’m proud that my editor didn’t have any notes on the romance during revision!

Q: What do you hope readers take away from your books, both lessons and emotions, once they turn the final page?

A: I hope that with all my books, the reader has a laugh or two, maybe gains a new perspective on a relationship or piece of their life, feels like they’ve been on a journey with my characters, and feels hopeful turning the last page. I read to escape, and my main goal is to bring joy and entertainment to my readers. And maybe to remind them that there’s magic and good and whimsy in the world, but sometimes you must look for it.

Q: Can you reveal any details about the next book you are writing now?

A: I’m so thrilled to be working on The Mortal Enemy Murder Club, the sequel to The Ex-Girlfriend Murder Club and book #2 in the Hu Done It mystery series (named after protagonist Kathryn Hu)! In it, the women are back on a new case and must work with their worst enemy from the first book.

You can look forward to the same humor and shenanigans in this one and much more of Kathryn’s mom! In the first book, Kathryn’s mom keeps sending her daughter ridiculous gifts because she’s single—a step stool because there’s “no man to reach up high for her,” a George Foreman grill because there’s “no man to grill for her,” and a Life Alert because she’s single and “could fall and not be able to get up.” And she plays an even bigger role in the sequel. 

Q: Gloria, you are also a screenwriter as well as an author! I think that’s amazing! Since you are a screenwriter, which movies did you write scripts for? 

A: Thank you so much! Unfortunately, I can’t share more about the movies I’ve worked on, but I’ve been lucky to work on adaptations of my own work as well as original projects. I love getting to work in different media, and my screenwriting experience has helped me hone the dialogue in my novels, and writing novels has helped me hone character and voice for screenwriting. I can’t wait to share more about my projects in the future!

Q: Since you are a screenwriter have you written screenplays for your books & does Hollywood have the rights to your work? Whether they have the rights to your work or not, who would be your dream cast to play the characters you created?

A: I am lucky to have worked on screenplays for my books. I hope to be able to share more about these projects in the future. For The Ex-Girlfriend Murder Club, I have a long dream cast list and am very open to many actors, but if I had to choose one for each role, they would be:

Kathryn: Leenda Dong

Olivia: Camila Mendes

Elle: Jennifer Lawrence

Tucker: Glen Powell

Q: What wisdom have you learned as an author that would help future authors whether it’s with writing, dealing with self-doubt, unsupportive family and friends, negative reviews and online trolls? 

A: I think the most important thing is to hold on to your passion for writing. There is so much in this industry that it is out of your control, but the one thing you can control is the work you produce and the joy you get from it. I have a notecard on my desk that says “enjoy every moment” to remind myself to be positive and to enjoy even the tough writing days. 

Also, it helps me to remember there’s no “right” way to write. I used to try to learn from other authors and felt like I had to do what they do, but it was freeing me to realize that it’s okay if certain methods aren’t a good fit. Figure out what works for you, and that may even change from project to project.