Emma Nanami Strenner: 'Conversations that are allowed to take up space on the page can reveal so much'
BY Maya Fernandes
15th Jul 2025
Emma Nanami Strenner was a student on our online Writing Your Novel – Six Months course in 2020. We caught up to discuss her debut novel, My Other Heart – out this week from Hutchinson Heinemann.
Read on to discover the inspiration behind Emma's debut, her favourite coming-of-age stories and her approach to creating authentic relationships on the page.
Emma, you studied on our online Writing Your Novel – Six Months course in 2020. How did your time with us shape your approach to writing?
There were so many things I took away from the Writing Your Novel course. First and foremost, was the idea of structure and having a discipline with what I was putting on the page. I realised early on during the course, that just because I had completed the better part of a first draft really meant nothing, because the real work starts when you start to edit.
I think that having deadlines and critiques from my peers made an enormous difference to the efforts I made, and as a journalist I realised that I really needed that kind of structure. Writing into the void for me, is not a productive place to be. The course certainly taught me to apply some self-imposed discipline to my wordcounts and output.
My tutors Lisa O’Donnell and Andrew Michael Hurley were fantastic. They both had such a different approach to the work, but I felt like my story was properly being examined, challenged and taken seriously which helped me to really carve out the essence of it properly.
I think too, having a group of writers who are all working on very different genres and styles but aspiring for the same thing was a wonderful community to be amongst.
Many of our students find lifelong writing friends on our courses. Are you still in touch with anyone you met on the course?
Do you know, sadly not so much. I had hoped to. But I think part of this might have been because we were online during the pandemic. Although I do hear from some of my coursemates sometimes and we had a WhatsApp chat group for a while. But we were a pretty international bunch. Australia, Singapore, France, Abu Dhabi, Hounslow!
My Other Heart is a sweeping coming-of-age novel that explores family, identity and the Asian-American experience. It follows three characters from very different backgrounds. Did you find it challenging to balance these different narratives?
I think that when it came to my main characters, Kit, Sabrina and Mimi, they almost arrived fully formed. And they were extremely headstrong, and insistent!
Kit and Sabrina’s journey in their friendship is very much one that begins when they are young, when they are unaware of social constructs that might shape the future of their relationship. As they edge towards high school graduation and head out on their respective coming-of-age summer adventures, the divide between their means and expectations of those around them becomes louder and louder. As the dynamic between them was set, I found that they almost riffed off of one another as they both grappled with themselves (sometimes knowingly and sometimes not).
The other aspect I found familiar with Kit and Sabrina was their adolescent journey. I too knew what it was like to watch a boy I liked, like my friend instead of me as I fell into the shadows. I knew what it was like to feel jealous of the attention a friend got. I knew what it was like to battle with the fact that I was drifting from a friend but didn’t know how to stop it. That journey when you’re a teenager is so raw and familiar.
For Mimi, the mother who loses her child at the beginning of the novel, there were aspects of her story I could relate to, in that I understand that desperate love and fear you have for your child. But at the same time, she was from an entirely different culture and world that I am not from, but I did live in Vietnam, and I met Vietnamese mothers in similar lines of work and circumstances and many of them inspired Mimi for me. I wrote her with a great deal of love and empathy and tenderness. She is an homage in a way to the wonderful women I got to know, and remain in touch with from Saigon. And I hope this comes through on the page.
Your debut moves between Tokyo, Ho Chi Minh City and Philadelphia. How do these locations play a role in the story?
The places are key to the story and play a huge role. Tokyo, because it is this faraway place that Kit imagines she is from, where she is in fact longing to be from. And the experience is so formative for her because it’s so alien to the life she knows in Chestnut Hill. It’s also where she meets the Buchanan siblings, both ha-fu, who she finds herself identifying with as she tries to understand herself better.
Sabrina is similarly sheltered in a way. Her family circumstances mean that she hasn’t travelled, and so her world sways between her home, and the wealthy suburbs of Chestnut Hill where she attends High School. She is always on the outside, looking in. This is until she meets Eva Kim, in downtown Philadelphia Centre City and her life opens up, even though she’s still in Philly. It’s as though she finds her feet and a confidence to embrace the person she is.
Ho Chi Minh City is where Mimi returns to after the devastating loss of her child in Philadelphia airport. She is wedded to the city, because she clings to the hope that her child might return to her there. As a place, it is so rich in its distinct culture, the fact that it’s a developing country, and so far away from the life that she imagines her child must have in America, where she feels completely alien and helpless. Which is highlighted really in the tragic circumstances in which she loses her baby, and when she tries to seek help, unable to communicate properly to anyone in the airport; she is eventually sedated and deported. Ho Chi Minh City is such an energetic, vibrant place. I lived there for two years and it has left such a deep impression of me, the food, the people, the pulse that runs through the city – I hope it comes across on these pages.
Relationships are at the heart of your story – romantic, familial and otherwise. How do you bring these dynamics to life in a way that feels real?
I think when it comes to relationships, love and connection it’s the small things, details that might reveal the depth of the bonds between people. Small gestures and kindness, and ultimately acceptance.
I also really believe in the power of dialogue. Conversations that are allowed to take up space on the page can reveal so much. This is also probably a little bit of my Japanese side coming through, but I think what is said and what is NOT said is often equal in its power.
What’s one piece of advice you’d give to someone writing their first novel?
My biggest piece of advice (and learning curve for myself too), was the power of the edit. And it is by no mean just a one-time thing. The edit is when the real work happens. I used to think after one draft and a read through things were good to go. And I was so very wrong. It is during the editing, round two, round three, four, five, six, seven, that the words will start to fall into place, you start to carve out the pieces that really create the intricacy of a story in the language that you want to use.
What are some of your favourite coming-of-age stories?
So many!
In terms of novels: Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, Zadie Smith’s Swing Time and White Teeth, Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle, Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep, Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings, Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, Charles Dicken’s Great Expectations, Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead.
And films like Stand By Me, Mermaids, The Perks of a Wallflower, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Call Me By Your Name, CODA, 10 Things I Hate About You.
And finally, what’s next for your writing journey?
I’m about halfway through the first draft of another novel; its constantly changing shape. But I hope to be done with it by the end of the year – and to be able to show Sheila, my wonderful agent at Curtis Brown, something to sink her teeth into!
I’m also writing for different newspapers and magazines.
We're so excited that Emma will be speaking on the Debut Author Panel at our inaugural New Writers' Day in October! Other speakers include fellow debut authors Lucy Rose and Charlotte Runcie. Plus bestselling author David Nicholls and Executive Publisher at Sceptre Federico Andornino.
Get your hands on a copy of My Other Heart.
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