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Katie O'Connor: Hi, listeners. I'm Audible Editor Katie O'Connor, and today I'm excited to be speaking with prolific and bestselling author Jesse Q. Sutanto. Welcome, Jesse.
Jesse Q. Sutanto: Hi. Thank you so much for having me.
KO: Thank you for being here today. Your latest novel, Next Time Will Be Our Turn, is about an Indonesian grandmother, Magnolia, reflecting on her late adolescence in California and the first love of her life, a girl named Ellery, in a story to her granddaughter, Izzy. You've said that in many ways this story is your reflection on your own time in California. Like Magnolia, you moved there at 16 to attend community college alongside your brother, which is a traditional path for Indonesian high school graduates. I'd imagine that your experiences were the inspiration for the setting and the ages of your characters, but I'm curious, what was the originating idea for Magnolia's personal story?
JS: So, it's been quite a few years since I went back to LA. I think it had been maybe almost 10 years, and then in 2022, I was invited to a conference there. The moment I landed and I walked out of LAX, I was like, "Oh, my God!" All the memories came rushing back. I don't know, the air feels different in LA. I don't know how to describe it. Good thing I'm a writer [laughs]. I swear the sky is higher in LA.
KO: You're not wrong, it's bigger. I agree with you. It feels bigger. The horizon feels bigger, yes.
JS: Yeah, so then when I came home, I was like, "Oh, my gosh, I need to write about this." I hadn't realized how much I missed LA.
KO: I love that. Yeah, you can feel the love that you have for that city through Magnolia's story. Now, as I alluded to, the structure of the novel is a grandmother sharing her past with her granddaughter. The book starts with Izzy, but the majority of the story is from Magnolia looking back, with brief interludes from Izzy. What drove your decision to choose this format as opposed to making it purely Magnolia's story?
JS: I think it was an easy way for me to move back and forth and do time jumps and skip a few years here and there. Because that's actually really hard to do. You might start a chapter with like, "Days went by and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” And it just always feels really awkward to me. But by framing it as her telling a story, then I can just bypass all that and be like, "Well, anyway, in the year 1997..."
KO: You're like, “Moving on” [laughs]. I am curious about the timeline of the story, because when Magnolia is 16 in California, it's 1998, which means that the present day of the novel when the book opens with Izzy is, by my math, set in the 2050s. And then once I realized it was the 2050s at the opening of the novel, I was very taken aback by the intensely negative reactions from Magnolia's family to her coming out with her girlfriend. Why did you pick those dates?
JS: I wanted to set the book in the ’90s because that was when I grew up. And then of course I was like, "Okay, so that means it has to be in the 2050s." I kind of sat down with that and I thought about it, about how the perception and attitudes towards LGBT issues would look for a Chinese Indonesian community. Honestly, I mean, I'm kind of pessimistic about it, and one of my friends had such a great explanation for why.
She was like, "You Chindos are the weirdest bunch of people ever." She's Singaporean. I was like, "Okay. Kind of rude, but okay, tell me why." And she was like, "Because most of you, your grandparents immigrated from China in the 1920s or 1930s to Indonesia. When they did that, they left behind a China that they remembered. They came to Indonesia and they're like, 'We're going to hold onto our Chinese traditions and Chinese values.' And they passed those traditions down to their kids and then the grandkids." And she said, "Meanwhile, back in China, the culture has already progressed. They're way more progressive. And in Indonesia, the native Indonesians have also progressed in terms of their beliefs and their culture. But the Chinese-Indos are kind of stuck in 1920s, 1930s beliefs, with purity culture and heteronormativity and all that.” I was like, "Oh, my gosh, you are right! Yes."
"I remember writing it and I had to stuff tissues up my nose because my nose kept running because I was like [cry sounds] while writing."
I talked to my best friend in California. She's American, but she's of Indian ethnicity, and she was like, "Oh, my gosh! That's exactly how it is in my community. When I talk to my cousins back in India, they're actually far more progressive than the Indian community in America. They're like, 'I don't understand why you guys are so traditional and old-fashioned.'" And she's like, "It's because it was our parents that moved to America.’ They're like, ‘Well, this is what we remember of Indian culture.’" That's why when I really sit down to think about it, I'm like, "Yeah, you're right, we have made very little progress in our community."
KO: That's so interesting. The community is really holding onto these traditional ideals, potentially without realizing how far the rest of the world has come in certain ways. I think, too, this kind of brings me to my next question. I loved how feminist the story is. There were so many strong moments of feminism, but also really subtle sort of rage-against-the-patriarchy moments, too. We see Magnolia take a very up-and-down journey, but I think one that really made sense for the timeline that you just laid out and for the culture that you've laid out as well. Why was it so important for you to tell such a feminist story?
JS: When I moved to LA at age 16, it kind of opened me up to a whole new world. Then I transferred to Berkeley and took my first women's studies class. I was like, "Oh, my God!" I kind of had a bit of a meltdown because I just realized that literally every part of my life was shaped by the patriarchy. I realized the length of my hair was shaped by the patriarchy. I remember in one of my classes the teacher was like, "Gender is the first identity that you're given. The moment you're born, the doctor goes, 'It's a girl!' or 'It's a boy!' You get it before even you get your name." I was like, "Oh, wow, that's so true."
Then in the moment I became very angry because I realized, oh, my God, everything in my life has been molding me to just kind of become this support system for the main character who is to be my future husband. I remember my parents told me, "Oh, you need to support your husband and everything he does. For example, if you marry a doctor, then you should go to nursing school so you can become the nurse, because otherwise he's going to cheat on you with the nurses that he works with."
KO: Oh, my goodness.
JS: And they're like, "Or if he's a lawyer, then you should be a paralegal because otherwise he's going to cheat on you with his personal assistant." At that time, I was like, "Mm-hmm. That makes so much sense." I was like, "Gosh, such good life advice." So, I kind of had an awakening, and it was very rough, and it just completely changed the way that I thought. Then it kind of became my mission, I guess, to live in as feminist a way as I could.
KO: Which I'm sure has come in handy as a mom to little girls as well, trying to make sure that they are not hearing those stories that you once heard about their paths, their careers, their options. Now, I don't want to spoil anything, but this book destroyed me. I joked to you earlier that I am considering suing you for emotional trauma. And you have said yourself that you cried through writing different parts of it. How did you separate yourself from your emotions enough to finish it?
JS: Gosh, I don't think I did, because I remember writing it and I had to stuff tissues up my nose because my nose kept running because I was like [cry sounds] while writing. I told my friend, because she writes sad books, and I said to her, "Oh, my gosh, this is total bullshit. I hate this. This is a con. Why is this book making me sad?" And then after I sent it off to my agent, she was like, "Oh, my God, I am completely wrecked. I'm crying so hard." And then I was like, "Oh, wow. It feels so good when other people cry."
KO: [Laughs] You're like, "This is satisfying." That's really funny. So, you are extremely prolific. Next Time Will Be Our Turn is the third book you've published this year, and I already see three pre-orders up on Audible for 2026, all for books that we'll be publishing in the first half of the year even. I have watched your Write a Book with Me in Five Weeks series on Instagram. I know you're very disciplined and committed to your 2,000 words a day approach, typically, but how do you avoid burnout at your pace?
JS: I think my Write a Book in Five Weeks thing really helps, because I write three books a year, so technically I'm only working for four months of the year, right? It's such a short time. Each book takes five weeks, and then it takes me about two weeks to read it and only a few days to edit before I send it off. Then, for the next two to three months, I'm basically not writing at all. I'm just living life, I guess. I have to work on edits from my publisher and stuff, but at least I'm not having to sit down and write 2,000 words. So far, I haven't felt burned out. Fingers crossed that keeps going.
"I find that once you have a dead body, the story kind of tells itself because it's just so clear what your characters need to do."
Oh, and the other thing, too, is that I finish the second half of my manuscript at a hotel, which is really nice, really beautiful. I'm there for like three nights, and I tell people not to bother me. I have the best food. I have long hot baths. My friends are like, "You're gonna write 40,000 words in three and a half days? You're gonna burn out." But because it's so luxurious, I come home feeling rejuvenated, and then I'm looking forward to the next writing retreat.
KO: Yeah, that makes sense. I have seen some of your posts when you do those retreats and it does look like it's a good time. I'm curious, I think you have such a fun online presence, you're so good at inviting your readers and your listeners into your process. But I've heard some authors say that this part of the quote-unquote "job" can exhaust them. How do you feel about the role of social media now in the context of an author's job?
JS: When I first started doing it, I was so stressed out by social media, because I'm not very good at selling the books on social media. But at the same time, I didn't want to give up on it. So, at first, I was spending a lot of time, like hours, trying to do the TikTok reels, the trends, like using the trending sounds and all that. It just wasn't working for me, so I actually burned out doing that pretty quickly.
It took a while, but I realized that I love social media, because I've met some of the most amazing people through social media. They've become really good friends. I started treating social media as kind of like a friend club, just a place where I would share things that I want to share with my friends. And the response from that has been amazing. I've met some of my best author friends—well, actually, no, all of my best author friends I have met through social media [laughs].
KO: That's great. It sounds like it's been an amazing community for you. So, in addition to being quite prolific, you're also a bit of a chameleon, which is a rarity among authors, but you publish across several different genres. Given your publishing schedule, I imagine that you have to shift focus pretty regularly. How do you get yourself in the right head space for each genre?
JS: I really love switching between genres when I'm writing. For example, after I write a really lighthearted rom-com, I'm like, "Okay, now time for something darker." And then after I write something dark, I'm like, "Whoa, that was really dark, and I really need something light." But what's not great is when I'm writing something and then edits for a different book come in, and then I have to switch gears. I'm so scared that it will bleed into the manuscript I'm currently writing if I shift gears. So, then I tend to be a diva and be like, "I need two more weeks, because I'm an artiste and I have a process." Thankfully, so far, all my publishers have just been so, so, so understanding.
KO: You can't mess with the process, right? Is there a particular genre that you're most drawn to? Also curious if there is a genre that you haven't tackled yet that you are eager to try?
JS: I would say the genre I'm most drawn to would be like a comedic murdering, like Dial A for Aunties. I find that once you have a dead body, the story kind of tells itself because it's just so clear what your characters need to do. And then the stakes are immediately so high, so those stories are the easiest or most natural for me to write.
As for a genre that I haven't written, at one point I was like, "I want to write a book about parenting, even though I know nothing about parenting." But maybe just a book about how clueless parents are in general.
KO: Fake it till you make it.
JS: Yes, exactly.
KO: Given the amount of work that you put out, what's your opinion on writer's block? Has it ever been an issue for you?
JS: I had writer's block with the very first manuscript that I tried writing just because I didn't know how it was done. I didn't know how to get ideas and how to keep a plot going. So, my first-ever book, it took me three years to write because I thought, "Oh, I can only write when I feel inspired." Then weeks would go by without me doing any writing. Then I would suddenly be like, "Oh, I'm so inspired today," and then I'll write. So, that was really stressful, because I felt blocked that entire time.
But now I have a process where I come up with the premise and then from that premise I just kind of walk up and down the hallway in my house and mutter to myself. I'm literally saying out loud, "Okay, so then what happens next? Okay, maybe this happens, or maybe that happens. And then what happens after that?" I'm just constantly talking to myself to try and keep the story going.
KO: Working it out before you have to really get pen to paper, as it were?
JS: Yes, exactly.
KO: Which of your characters would you say you have the most affection for?
JS: I would have to say Vera just because she's so annoying [laughs].
KO: Don't talk about Vera that way [laughs]. She's great. I'm eager for more from Vera. You have worked with some amazing narrators across all your books. How involved are you in the audiobook process?
JS: My publishers have been surprisingly open to me suggesting. Usually, they give me a sample of four to five different narrators, and then I listen to the samples. They let me have my pick, as long as the narrator is available. That's just been such a nice surprise with how involved they allow me to be.
KO: Yeah, that's really nice. I have to say, Emily Woo Zeller and Louisa Zhu do a beautiful job on Next Time Will Be Our Turn. I am a longtime fan of Emily's. I was unprepared to hear her as a grandmother, but she just blew me away as Magnolia. And this was my first time hearing Louisa, but after that ending, wow, I cannot wait to hear more from her. What did their performances mean to you?
JS: I'm actually listening to the audiobook now. I think I'm like 20 percent in and oh, my gosh! I mean, the grandma voice actually sounds like a grandma. So good.
KO: I went back and checked my phone. I was like, "Is this Emily?" Just amazing, amazing performance.
JS: Yeah, I was like, "Wow." Her voice is so maternal and yet so full of, like, wit. And a little sarcasm here and there, like a world-weary grandma, you know? It was just so perfect. And then Izzy, she sounds like Izzy. It's amazing. I love them.
KO: They were great. And to your point of the wit that Emily threw in there, too, I loved when she would break the fourth wall and have a sort of aside to Izzy in the middle of her stories. The sass that came through in those moments is a lot of fun, too.
JS: Yes.
KO: You have been very vocal about your ADHD diagnosis, which I think is just so tremendous for the neurodivergent community. What are the ways that your ADHD enhances your creativity?
JS: When I got the diagnosis, I was like, "Wow, this explains so much." I think that if I didn't have ADHD, I definitely would not have the creativity that I have right now, because my mind is constantly whizzing around. For example, when I'm watching TV, I can't just watch it. I need to be like, "Well, I wouldn't do it that way. I would tell that story this other way." Or I'm like, "Wow, okay. That is the most amazing way to frame a story. Can I do that with one of my books?"
"I think that if I didn't have ADHD, I definitely would not have the creativity that I have right now."
So, Dial A for Aunties, I can't even remember what I was inspired by specifically, but I just remember watching enough shows where they have an older auntie character, and I would sit there and think like, "Ugh, I wish she was the main character because she's so much more interesting." And so then I was like, "Well, I'm going to write a book where an older auntie character is like a badass boss bitch.”
So, I just feel like without the ADHD manic brain that keeps jumping around here and there, first of all, I wouldn't be as creative. And then second of all, I really don't think I would be able to write a book in five weeks. Part of the reason I trained myself to write a book so quickly is because if I spend too long on it, I'll get bored because of the ADHD. So, I'm like, "Okay, I gotta write this in a time crunch."
KO: You've figured it out, right? You've cracked the code on what works for you, and it sounds like it's just been an amazing fuel for you. As a fan, we're grateful that your brain is jumping in the way that it is. What do you hope listeners take away from Next Time Will Be Our Turn?
JS: That you're probably not the first one in your family to be a certain way, and that probably quite a few of your ancestors were the way that you are. And that they've all kind of paved the way a little bit, and so you can pay it forward by paving a little bit more of the pathway for your future descendants.
KO: That's really nice. Dare I ask what's next for you?
JS: What did I just finish writing? Oh, okay, I just finished writing a suspense book, and then next I will have to write the sequel to my fantasy novel, which is coming out next year. I find that so intimidating. Fantasy is so hard. Oh, my gosh. I don't know why. I wrote it because I really wanted a beautiful fantasy cover [laughs]. But, oh, my goodness, it is so difficult to write.
KO: A lot of world-building.
JS: So much world-building, and then as it turns out, your magic system needs to make sense. You can't just be like, "Oh, it's magic."
KO: I love it. Well, I am eager to listen to that one and everything else that you have down the pipeline.
JS: Thank you.
KO: Thank you so much for your time today. Listeners, you can get Next Time Will Be Our Turn by Jesse Q. Sutanto right now on Audible.
JS: Thank you. I really enjoyed this.
