Q&A with “The Love Match” author, Priyanka Taslim

A Better Force (ABF) held its first ever book club session on March 9, 2023 where we discuss fiction written by women of color. This month’s book was “The Love Match”, which chronicles the struggles of a Bangladeshi American teen in a period of transition, bereavement, and financial hardship in her life. We were honored to have author, Priyanka Taslim, join us for a Q&A section, where she answered all our burning questions. Below is a transcript of our conversation with Priyanka. Minor edits have been made for clarity.

Priyanka Taslim: Thank you all so much for having me. Thank you to Saamiya and Sarah for inviting me. I was so excited! The Love Match has been chosen for a couple of book clubs but this was the first time I was invited to a discussion. And I really enjoyed listening to a lot of your thoughts on it.

Saamiya Seraj (facilitator): Thank you so much. We just have a few warm-up questions for you. And then we'll open up the floor for everyone. If you would like to give a brief introduction about yourself and about the book, we would really love that.

Priyanka Taslim: Of course. I'm the author of the Love Match, which released January 3rd, just a couple of months ago now. I was born and raised in New Jersey, actually in Paterson, where the book takes place and I lived there for most of my life. Up until very, very recently, I was a high school English teacher and taught ninth-grade English and at the same time I was writing. I actually taught in Paterson so I am very, very connected in the community. My grandfather was one of the first Bengali settlers in Paterson. My mom always talks about that. My Nana helped to found the mosque there. My family has been very rooted in the Paterson community for a long time. So, it was really meaningful for me to be able to debut with a book that I consider a love letter to growing up in a place like Paterson.

Recently, I've kind of shifted to doing author events and visits to various places and school visits. So, kind of combining my experience as a teacher with my experience as an author. It's just been really lovely to have South Asian readers, Muslim readers, Bangladeshi readers, Asian readers, people from all different backgrounds reach out and let me know that the book resonated with them. Because as I'm sure a lot of you can relate, we did not get books like this when we were younger. And so even just a few years ago, I would have been shocked if you told me: “Priyanka, not only do you get to be an author, but you get to be an author who has an almost entirely South Asian cast, and an all Bangladeshi love triangle” because it wouldn't have existed even until very, very recently.

Saamiya Seraj: Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, when I was reading this book, I kept saying, this is the book I needed as a teenager when I was going through all these experiences. That's a good segue to our next question. The idea that led to this book club was that stories about women of color often get left behind. Bangladesh is a tiny country in Southeast Asia. What gave you the inspiration and courage to write not just about Desi people, but specifically about the Bangladeshi community that gets sidelined a lot?

Priyanka Taslim: For the longest time, I was a voracious reader. I then became a voracious writer. But I never really thought that I could become a published author writing about characters that had any sort of relation to me at all. Some of the very first authors of color that I saw getting published in young adult when I was a teenager myself, they were writing books about mixed protagonists. So, there was some sort of Euro-centric standard that they could achieve. They might be Asian, but they have blond hairs sometimes. They have blue eyes sometimes. 

It felt like that was necessary or that they were writing under a pen name that was more Euro-centric, so that they could still get to write. And I thought that's what I had to do. And so, for the longest time, I was writing all-white casts, or mostly white cast with that funny side character who is ambiguously ethnic, because that's what I was used to reading even as books started to get more and more diverse. 

But around college, I actually had a professor in creative writing. I minored in Creative Writing while getting my certification in education. And I had a professor who said, “I've never heard anything about Bangladesh before I had you as a student. I would like to know more about it. Why don't you write about it more?” And at first, I felt a little bit of resentment toward him because I thought: it feels unfair for this white male professor to dictate what he thinks I should be writing, I should be allowed to write anything. And it wasn't necessarily that he was saying I wasn't allowed to write anything else, he was just kind of pushing me toward it (stories about Bangladesh). But the first time I wrote a short story with a Bangladeshi main character, suddenly, all of these blocks that I had previously that prevented me from finishing an original novel, it felt like a light bulb went off over my head. And I could really, really connect to this character in a way that I hadn't ever before. And so that was the moment that I really thought that I want to write about characters that resemble me more, that I can connect to more.

I was an avid fanfiction writer. I don't know if anyone here is a fan of fanfiction, but I was. *Some raised hands in the crowd and Priyanka cheers* I feel like there's a lot of brown geeks, geeks of color, and we don't always get our shine. But I was an avid fanfiction writer. And I was always able to finish my fanfics but I couldn't finish any of my original works. Because that required coming up with white characters who are completely original. And the things that I liked about these existing characters who I will fanfic about, that didn't necessarily connect to those (original white) characters that I was making up. Well, when I first started making up characters that were more like me, suddenly, I had this connection to them that I hadn't before.

I'm also very motivated by spite sometimes. And I'm sure a lot of you are also used to this. Often in media, when Bangladesh is mentioned, it was in a negative capacity. I've written guests essays before about how the first time I saw Bangladesh mentioned in Western media was in the show How I Met Your Mother. They have a character who's one of the only Bangladeshi characters in Western media, named, I think, Ranjit. And he is a taxi driver. So immediately, he's very stereotypical, he drives white characters around as they go through New York City. And in the episode, there is a scene where Barney, who's a womanizer, asks him: so what does your wife look like? What do Bangladeshi women look like? (This happens) when (Ranjit) says “I'm from Bangladesh”, and Ranjit shows him a photo of his wife. And Barney's immediate comment is to look toward the camera and make a face and just imply that Bangladeshi women are actually not attractive and that they're very, very ugly. I was only I think, 15 at the time when I saw that, but it really hurt me deeply. And I had been enjoying the episode before that. But that moment stayed with me from that moment. And now I'm double that (age). But still, it's really stayed with me. And it hurt to think that a character that I had been enjoying would think someone like me was ugly, that my mother was ugly, that people I knew were ugly. And so that really motivated me, even though I knew would be difficult, it motivated me to want to write a romance that has an all-Bangladeshi cast, that has both a Bangladeshi protagonist and a (Bangladeshi) love interest.

But it was really difficult because up until now, the only South Asian representation we have tends to be very, very standard Indian representation. Doesn't even go into different Indian backgrounds. Only now are we starting to see South Indian characters, characters who are from various states of India, and not just that generic Indian representation. So, I think a lot of authors of color feel this need to be palatable. And in a lot of my early drafts, instead of writing cha or saa, I would write chai, or other words that were more common in Hindi because I thought more readers would be familiar with that. And then the more I worked on the book, the more I thought, I really just want this to be a celebration of being Bangladeshi. And so, every single draft, I just changed the words more and more until we got to the point where it was like, okay, not only am I going to use just Benagli, but I'm going to use my Sylheti dialect, even if it's not familiar for everyone.

Saamiya Seraj: You know, we were talking about that. That really resonated for us. It was the first time I saw it written as cha or saa, I was like, “oh, yeah, Bangladeshi representation!” and it felt really good. Thank you for sharing your writing process. I was reading some of your acknowledgments and my sister and I were laughing about it, because we read the part about asking for forgiveness for the kissy parts. *laughter* Were you nervous about your family and community reading the book? And what are your thoughts on that?

Priyanka Taslim: Honestly, I was. To the extended Muslim community, the extended Bangladeshi and South Asian community, I was very nervous about it because there is a lot of stigma associated with romance. The ironic thing is if you turn on a natok, or you turn on a Bollywood movie, 99% of the time, there is a romantic subplot or main plot in the story. And I thought, okay, if those stories that my parents watch can have these subplots, then I can write it too. But I was still very, very anxious about writing it.

I will say that my family has been wonderful. I hid it from them for a long time. I hid even the fact that I was writing anything for a long time. And I only revealed it to them when I got a literary agent, which I think a lot of people from immigrant families can relate to, because your family wants you to do something that you will be successful at. And when they hear about writing, they think, “How are you going to make that happen?” It just, it just doesn't happen for a lot of people. I needed that concrete piece of evidence that, “Hey, I can do this, someone believes in me.” So, that was when I revealed to my immediate family that I was a writer - when I got my literary agent, but I didn't tell them what I was writing until I got the book deal. And they didn't ask to be fair. Even recently, it was difficult for me because I can speak Bengali, but I speak Banglish. I grew up in America, I was born and raised in America. So I primarily spoke English. And it was difficult for me to kind of translate the plot of the story to my parents who speak solely Bengali. But I'll say that my community has been really, really wonderful and supportive.

When I had my book launch in New Jersey, a lot of uncles, aunties, etc, came, and I'm just always hearing from various people that they're just proud that the book exists. I think honestly, sometimes our elders are better at these things. I've gotten more backlash from younger generations of kids. Our political climate gets a little bit difficult, things are skewing more and more conservative, because of these attacks on the LGBT community, and I think that trickles into our communities as well. Overwhelmingly, it's been positive, but I've seen backlash from some people who are unhappy that I, as a Muslim author, would include LGBTQ side characters, and various things like that. So, there has been some backlash. But I feel like none of us are a monolith. And there's a very diverse experience from various people. I wanted to kind of reflect that in the book too, because Zahra and her friends are all different. They're all brown girls, but they're all different.

And I wanted to make it all feel okay, like you can exist as a person and have the same identity without having to feel like you're the exact same person. I feel like there are some people who are pushing that there's one right kind of representation when it comes to marginalized characters. And that is difficult. But at the same time, for me, I'll say, I feel like these people are the online ones, like the ones that make their whole personality judging others online. But in real life, I've met so many kids, so many adults who've picked up the book and said that they resonated with it. And it was true to their experiences. So, to me, that's more valuable than the people online who honestly I feel like wouldn't be happy, regardless of anything. They'll always find something to judge. That, I think is the unfortunate part of being a marginalized author in general, not just a Bangladeshi author or Muslim author. I've seen other marginalized authors of various backgrounds say this: sometimes because of the dearth of representation, people really want to feel connected to a book. But there's so few that when it doesn't reflect their exact experiences, they get upset, and there is some backlash there.

Saamiya Seraj: Yeah, thank you. That's a really beautiful answer. As someone who has always been kind of on the side fringes, when you said that there doesn't need to be one kind of representation that really resonated with me, and I was really happy and touched to see an LGBTQIA character because as a Muslim, even though I'm so open, I still feel like it's a taboo topic to talk about in the greater Muslim community. In the book, it’s mentioned that people sometimes write off Dani and Ximena as "gals being pals" or there’s the fact that Ximena out and proud but it's not safe for Dani to do so. That crushed my soul because, it is (like that). And some people spend a lifetime hiding from the Auntie network. So, thank you for representing that.

Priyanka Taslim: Of course. For me, honestly, I have friends who are in those communities. Wanting those people to be seen matters more to me than the backlash that I might get from some other people who will always consider it a taboo. I just find it unfortunate, but I hope that books like The Love Match still make these people feel seen. Because I worry sometimes, I'm like, "Okay, this person's going to be a mother or father," and I am scared for them to have any kids who might feel like outcasts within their families. But hopefully, books like The Love Match (and I have a friend, Adiba Jaigirdar, who's also Bangladeshi and she writes queer Bangladeshi characters specifically) make people within those communities feel seen and know that you can have joy and you're allowed to exist and be who you are.

[Saamiya opens the floor to questions from attendees. Attendee names are not listed to protect their privacy.]

Attendee #1 : What are you working on currently? Will it be another story focusing on Bangladeshi or Desi young women or something completely different?

Priyanka Taslim: That is such a good question. For me, it's just always been important to center stories with brown women, because it's still so rare to get books like that. And so, I was recently able to announce my adult debut, which is a woman's fiction novel, called "From Mumbai With Love", and it's about a woman in New York, who after her mother passes away, learns that the father she never knew is actually still alive after taking DNA tests and matching with a sibling. He's still alive. He's in Mumbai. He's a businessman, he actually has a very successful business. And she has all these adult half-siblings who are quarreling over taking over the business. And there's also this big family wedding. So she's kind of thrown into the family in this very pivotal moment in all of their lives. And obviously, there's all this rivalry going on. So not everyone is happy to discover that they have another sister who might be thrown into the fray in this competition. And that particular book has a diverse array of South Asian characters, but they are for the most part Bengali and Bangladeshi. Her (father’s) family is living in Mumbai, but they are predominantly Bangladeshi. And then she is Bangladeshi, but also her mother was something else. And so that's been fun to write. I just turned in revisions for that. And that one also has- because it takes place in Mumbai- a predominantly South Asian cast. And, again, the side characters are predominantly people of color.

And then I'm working on my next young adult novel, which is not really a follow up to the Love Match. It's not a sequel, but I consider kind of everything part of one Priyanka universe. One connected universe. And that one hasn't had any formal information released yet, but it is about a girl who gets to travel to Bangladesh. She was born and raised in the US, it's her first time going to Bangladesh and seeing what it's like there and developing more of a connection to it. Because I think a lot of kids in the diaspora, as many of you were discussing, don't always have that connection to their culture. And it's again, it's a rom com. So, it has a lot of funny moments, but this time, it's going to be about a younger sister. I, like Zahra, am an older sister and I felt all the burdens, the pressures  of being the oldest sister in an immigrant family. This one is going to be about a younger sister and how that's sometimes different. Because she also has this older sister who she feels is perfect. So I've had a lot of fun exploring both of those stories.

Attendee #2 : You said that a lot of people related to the characters in the book. And since they are based on your life and people you've known, did you find anyone who saw themselves as a character in the book? Not necessarily the main character, like they recognize themselves as an auntie, for example.

Priyanka Taslim: The majority of the Bangladeshi diaspora community, a lot of them are working class. And so, they didn't always have the opportunity to learn English to the same capacity that a lot of people speak. And so, I've actually taken kind of comfort in this because I know that my aunties and uncles can't always read and fully comprehend everything in the book. So, I don't, I haven't heard anyone say that they really relate to the aunties. But I'm hoping that it can be a book that bridges conversations between kids and parents sometimes because it's about neither being quite right and like coming to understand each other. So, I'm hoping that that'll happen someday.

I've definitely had readers say that they related to characters like Dani because they weren't really seeing a lot of representation of getting to be both queer and Muslim or queer and South Asian. So, I've had readers reach out to me about that. I've mostly seen people say they relate to Zahra in various ways, either because they experienced similar financial constraints or just in general, I think being the oldest daughter in a family regardless of your racial background. Societally, there's a lot of pressure that's put on you that isn't necessarily put on sons. I've had a lot of people say that "even though I'm not Bangladeshi, even though I'm not Muslim, I still was an immigrant. I still really related to the pressures that Zahra was feeling." So, in that way, I think Zahra is probably the person that people say they relate to the most.

 But I've also had people say, "Oh, I really liked how you have the character of Harun. He's really uncomfortable speaking Bengali sometimes. That's how I feel as a person in the diaspora. I don't know how to speak Spanish" or "I don't know how to speak Bengali or Hindi," whatever might be the case, and “because of that, I kind of feel removed from that background”. So, I really wanted to write about a diverse array of experiences. And I hope that more and more people see someone that they can relate to in the book.

Attendee #3: I think a protagonist usually has a little bit of a soft spot in the author's heart, but I wondered if there was any other characters that you really enjoyed writing or thinking about or crafting in particular. 

Priyanka Taslim: I'm glad to see that quite a few of you said that you were team Harun. Because I also had a soft spot for Harun. I feel like I'm a combination of Zahra and Harun as far as personality goes. I've become more and more like Zahra as I got older. I grew more confident. I wasn't as confident as her when I was a teenager myself. I feel like I was more of a Harun. I was very, very anxious. I might have been bright, but I was very shy about that. I experienced some bullying myself as a teenager and as a kid, and I think that made me go into my shell more. So, I really liked writing him as a character, and I liked when I saw that readers could relate to him or enjoyed him as a love interest. It made me really happy several times to see like a handful of people said, "Oh, I have a new book boyfriend, and it's Harun," and I thought that never would have happened. If you told teenage Priyanka that could happen, I would have been shocked. So Harun is one that I'm really fond of. But honestly, one of my writing tips is to kind of like all of your characters. Because if you can like all of your characters, you can understand all of your characters, and I think that makes a better book.

One of the flaws or detriments of writing a love triangle sometimes is that you can tell that the author has a favorite. And so, you're not really confused as you're following along with the story. But I liked both of the boys and I could honestly have seen either of them with Zahra all the way to the end. Both of them were flawed, but both of them also had their qualities that helped her find herself as a person, which I think is honestly the most important thing for a teenage girl. If you're going to have a romance, it should help you kind of figure yourself out because of where you are in the world. So yeah, I'll say I liked all of the cast at various points. A random character that I really liked writing but I didn't realize I would early on is Mr. Tahir. He was so much fun to write. I think I like them all in different ways.

Attendee #3: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I really liked Amma, I think that's actually my favorite character because I think she was so complex.

Priyanka Taslim: I really liked writing her too. In fact, I tell people that neither Harun nor Nayim are as important to the story as Zahra’s love story with her mom. That's really the main love story. And then they're (Harun and Nayim) kind of second tier to that. So I'm so glad to hear you say that.

Attendee #4: I really love Mr. Tahir as well, like I always laughed when he was awkwardly trying to be protective. It was really awesome. That scene where he leaves Zahra alone with Nayim and he's like, I don't want to get in trouble with your mom. And it was so relatable. It's hilarious.

Priyanka Taslim: Thank you so much. I had a lot of fun writing him, especially because he's like the dad figure in the story.

Attendee #4: I also had a question. I know, it can be really difficult, as you mentioned, to get published as a brown woman. I was wondering if you had any tips for aspiring writers? How do you break into the industry when there are so few of us around, you know?

Priyanka Taslim: Definitely. And I feel like recently, it's actually gotten more difficult because of the pandemic. There was a lot of discussion early on in the pandemic, in the wake of what happened with George Floyd about more diversity. But instead (after that), I feel like a lot of situations have been created where there's been less (diversity) than there had been in previous years. So, it is definitely a very, very difficult place to break into.

I will say that finding your community really helps. So, for me having people who were rooting for me for the longest time. In fact, as I was listening to all of you - you were talking about various backgrounds that you came from. A lot of my friends were people who had similar experiences to me, but from completely different backgrounds. They came from their own immigrant backgrounds, where they were also diaspora kids who were born here, and so on. And so, finding people like that, who were also at a similar stage, trying to break in in a similar way. It created these whisper networks where we can really talk to each other about, “Here's an agent who I know is going to be safe for you to query”, or “Here's an agent that you should really stay away from, because the feedback that I got from them was very bigoted and I don't think they would be safe. Here's some other stuff that I've heard about them.” So, finding that writing community, I think is a big help.

Twitter now, especially with everything that's been going on with Elon has been very, very messy. But early on, and I think it was 2017 when I first joined Twitter for writing, I found a lot of people through doing writing sprints. So, I would say like, “Okay, I'm going to write for the next hour, if anybody wants to join me, come and let's write together.” And I met a lot of people that way. Then some of them have gotten published before me. And then some of them have gotten agented or are still not there yet. But we're still together. So that's another thing too, because I feel like sometimes writers lose that sense of community as they gain status. And so that's something to avoid too, because I have some of my closest friends who might still not be published, but I know that they are always going to be championing me. And so, I'm going to be championing them in return.

Do a lot of research. It's better to have no agent than to have an agent who is not there for your career. There's a lot of things that I didn't know. As the child of an immigrant, I didn't have a lot of people or anyone who was in publishing, so I didn't know about querying. You don't have to pay anyone for querying. That is something that I feel like a lot of early writers get tricked into thinking. That, “Oh, if I just pay this amount of money, I can get an agent and I can get published”. But those people are usually trying to scam you. Because your agent only gets paid via commission. I think there's a lot of great resources now like query tracker, or query shark that let you find out things about agents, like whether or not they're safe. And I keep talking about agents because I feel like agents are the main gatekeepers. They're the hardest person to get to sign you and then, editors are still difficult and getting a book deal is still difficult and you still encounter some of those same issues, but I feel agents are that first gatekeeper.

Definitely, find your community. And I'll say that, other authors of color, particularly women of color, Asian women, other Desi women have been some of my most ardent supporters. We stick together sometimes even when publishing makes it difficult. If you look on the back of this book, the blurbs are all from Asian authors, South Asian, various South Asian authors. I actually did ask some white authors and I asked some male authors, and they ended up not having the time to blurb which is understandable, and they might have been legitimately busy, but it to me was very meaningful that every South Asian woman that I asked, was able to make the time to read and support this book. I do think that community, just like in the book, community is our biggest advantage. Publishing is still filled with white gatekeepers. But if we are able to find our community and have a strong community, then we can still rise above all that adversity. I really liked that quote, “the rising tide lifts all boats”. So rather than see each other as competition, I think we need that community to stick together and help each other.

Saamiya Seraj: Thank you for sharing that. That’s a beautiful answer. If everyone who has a story to tell isn’t (held up) by gatekeepers, then they can publish their stories and make others feel seen and feel beautiful and empowered, which is what this book made us feel. Since it’s 9pm and we want to respect your time, we’ll wrap up the Q&A section here. Thank you so much for joining us and providing such beautiful and insightful answers.

Priyanka Taslim: Thank you so much for having me. Listening to you all talk was very meaningful to me as well.