Vanessa Hua’s Letter to Librarians

In COYOTELAND, Vanessa Hua writes an urgent, riveting, and heartfelt novel set in an affluent Bay Area suburb where a Chinese American family moves in and sets off a series of scandals. It is at once a delicious suburban drama and an unflinching exploration of our current moment. In her letter to librarians, she shares how grateful she is for her book to be honored by librarians and featured within libraries, a place where she has always felt at home. 

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Dear Librarian,

I’m the American-born daughter of Chinese immigrants, and as a girl I often felt torn between worlds. But I always felt at home at the library, where I spent long afternoons reading by tall windows, returning home with a stack of books. It felt like winning the jackpot—it still does.

My literary heroes were headstrong young women who dreamed of becoming writers: Jo March in LITTLE WOMEN, Anne Shirley in ANNE OF GREEN GABLES, and Laura Ingalls from LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE. Like them, I wanted to be a writer too. Sharing their ambitions made my own dreams feel possible.

I’m deeply grateful to the librarians who selected my debut novel, A RIVER OF STARS, as a Library Read, and Forbidden City as a Loan Star. I was honored when the San Francisco Public Library chose A RIVER OF STARS for On the Same Page, its citywide read, and when the El Cerrito (CA) Library selected my short story collection, DECEIT AND OTHER POSSIBILITIES, for its One City, One Book program.

I’ve loved appearing at libraries in person and on Zoom across the country—San Francisco, Monterey, Houston, Arlington, Maine, and Philadelphia, to name just a few—and I’m always happy to participate in library fundraisers.

During the pandemic, my family missed browsing for books, but we were grateful when our branch began offering pick-up service. In those months, my neighborhood was overtaken by wildlife emboldened by the absence of an apex predator. On a morning walk, I saw two deer chasing a mangy coyote down the street. A sign of a world off-kilter, but also inspiration for my novel COYOTELAND, which explores wealth, privilege, and the housing market. The book reflects changes long underway in the suburbs where I grew up—changes my immigrant Chinese family was part of—and led me to consider loss, displacement, and encroachment: of territory, of predators and prey, of surveillance and security. Neighbors still trade warnings after wildlife sightings—lock your doors, hold your children tight—and the tone of those conversations echoes broader debates about who and what are viewed with suspicion. COYOTELAND examines how everyday decisions reverberate across neighborhoods, and how distant events arrive, unexpectedly, next door.

COYOTELAND will be published in May, during Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. The annual celebrations at libraries are deeply meaningful to me as a Chinese American writer whose love of stories was nurtured in the stacks. My body of work continues to reflect my deep and long passion for covering those navigating a new America, straddling cultures and continents, and the conflicts between self and society, tradition and change. The kind of books I sought as a child, that my sons have been discovering. Ever since my twins were infants, my husband and I have brought them to the library weekly. Now teenagers, they’re just as eager to pick up graphic novels and narrative nonfiction.

Thank you for supporting authors and for welcoming generations of readers. I’m excited to invite you into the vibrant world of COYOTELAND and hope you can share that experience with others.

Vanessa Hua
Author of COYOTELAND