Asked about her writing quirks and rituals, Thea Guanzon shares: “Every day I ate shawarma rice for dinner. It’s my brain food. I also need to be drinking iced coffee while writing.”
Ilongga author Thea Guanzon and the cover of her New York Times bestselling novel 'The Hurricane Wars'. Photos from Guanzon's website and Instagram“It’s been a wild ride,” 34-year-old Pinay author Thea Guanzon tells ANCX, reflecting on the success of her debut romance fantasy novel “The Hurricane Wars.”
She decided to pursue International Studies at Miriam College with the goal of becoming a Foreign Service officer. Her initial career plan was to pursue a Master’s degree first and subsequently take the Foreign Service exam. But her path took an unexpected turn when an editor from one of the major publishing houses in the United States contacted her. “She asked me if I'd ever thought about writing an original novel because she had been following my short stories online,” she recalls.
After Neil Gaiman, I also read Gregory Maguire, whose descriptions are very lyrical and immersive and atmospheric. And then there's Amy Tan, who also has a really good ear for prose, for very delicate and vivid language. In trying to be like all of these writers, that was when I stumbled upon my own voice in a sense because I was writing every day at that point.
Of course. The weapons of mass destruction in this book are based on storm magic, which was definitely inspired by living here in the Philippines. A lot of typhoons come through here every year and it's always an ongoing nationwide conversation how best to mitigate their effects. I took inspiration from that in writing stories about people who are working together to help one another in the aftermath of storms.
I really liked the enemy to lovers trope. So this is me sharing my own take on that with the world. As for what I hope readers will take away from it, I hope that it will encourage them to learn more about Southeast Asia and seek out more of our stories because my book barely scratches the surface; there's so much more out there. Southeast Asia is such a beautiful, diverse and colorful region and we have so many interesting tales to share with the rest of the world.
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