Who can keep up with Ann Liang? The Chinese Australian author has been sustaining a tenacious release schedule since the 2022 release of her debut YA novel If You Could See the Sun, which is being developed into a TV series; Liang has released six books for YA and adult readers in just three years, with more on the horizon.

The possibility of becoming a writer was once only a daydream for Liang, who was so inspired by an author visit at school that she considered writing a novel at the age of 12. “I went to check out her books, and I saw the publisher was accepting manuscripts, and I thought maybe I should try writing one,” Liang told PW. “Obviously that did not go anywhere, but it was always an idea that has really appealed to me.”

It wasn’t until 2020, when Liang was studying at the University of Melbourne (majoring in history and media/communications), and under Covid lockdown, that she realized there was no better time to pursue the future she truly wanted. As her friends began going down the traditional route of finding internships and getting jobs, Liang recognized how easy it would be to follow in their footsteps, but the pandemic shifted her perspective: “Anything could change in a moment. I might as well seize whatever I can, and make the most of what I have right now.” But how does a university student break into publishing? Simple: Google.

“I was very lucky,” Liang said of her journey. After following a list of steps under the search “How do you become an author?,” she started querying with a manuscript that would become her first published novel, and she began hearing back from agents within days, including her current agent, Kathleen Rushall at Andrea Brown Literary Agency. “From there on, that’s when things really started to feel real.”

Fast forward just five years, and the daydream has become a reality for Liang, who is releasing two titles this year. “Writing has always been a way for me to process things that either are happening to me or have happened to me in the past,” she said. “Because of that, there are always a few ideas simmering in the back of my mind.”

The first of Liang’s books to hit shelves this year was I Am Not Jessica Chen, a speculative tale about Jenna, a hardworking teen whose admiration and envy for the popular eponymous character takes on new meaning when Jenna wakes up in Jessica’s body. The book, which was released in January by HarperCollins, was acquired in 2022 by Claire Stetzer at Inkyard Press in an exclusive submission. In 2023, HarperCollins shuttered Inkyard, bringing Liang and her work to Sara Schonfeld, senior editor at HarperCollins.

“Even picking up from another editor’s wonderful work on it, I was able to see that Ann is such a talent and has an incredible eye for not only what is working well in the YA space, but what works well with her fans,” said Schonfeld.

The original concept for I Am Not Jessica Chen lived in Liang’s mind since 2020 when the title first came to her. The novel grapples with the high pressure of competitive scholarly institutions through the eyes of Jenna, an overachiever whose dreams of attending Harvard are shattered when she’s rejected, setting her up to be compared to her seemingly perfect cousin Jessica Chen. When Jenna wishes that she could be as perfect as her cousin, she winds up trapped in Jessica’s body, facing the dark reality of academic success and popularity.

Liang has touched on the stress of academia in other works such as If You Could See the Sun. It’s an experience she’s familiar with, growing up attending “competitive schools” such as Beijing International School. “It’s definitely influenced by my own school environment,” she said. “It felt like a heightened sense of stakes, and everyone cared a lot about their grades. When you’re surrounded by that, you naturally grow to care about it too.”

In her new book, Liang homes in on a quintessential part of girlhood: the fixation on an idealized girl, but this time through the lens of both the imposter and the envied. “The whole idea of Jessica Chen is that she is perfect. She’s like a legend, a myth, a god,” she said. “The standards are so high and unrealistic that truly nobody can actually achieve them.”

But the reality is that even the girls who seem like they have it all feel like they’re faking it too. It’s the Catch-22 of imposter syndrome the book hopes to portray. “People are praising you and they’re saying you achieve this and that, but it genuinely feels like someone else did it,” Liang said. “You’re just trying to keep up this disguise so that people don’t realize that you’re not as good as they think. Having the [body switch] as a vehicle was a way for me to explore those feelings, but with tangible and magical consequences.”

Summer Lovin’

The star of Liang’s summer romance Never Thought I’d End Up Here, out from Scholastic on June 3, seems like she would be on the opposite end of the imposter syndrome spectrum. As a model, Leah has achieved the career she’s always imagined for herself, only to learn that she doesn’t quite know who she is underneath all the glamour, and when she's placed on a two-week tour across China via train by her parents, begins to deepen her relationship to her heritage. The only problem? Her childhood enemy Cyrus is booked on the same trip, and Leah is bent on seeking revenge.

Liang has flexed her romance muscles before, in rom-coms such as This Time It’s Real and most recently I Hope This Doesn’t Find You, also from Scholastic, but writing a character who is facing the aftermath, rather than the buildup, to success, marked new territory for the author.

“Leah is a very different kind of protagonist. She already tried to achieve a dream, and it didn’t work out, or didn’t feel the way she thought it would feel,” said Maya Marlette, senior editor at Scholastic, who works with Liang. “It was really cool to see Ann stretch herself and write this new kind of character.”

An important theme throughout the novel is Leah’s relationship to the concept of home and “feeling like a foreigner in her own country.” An L.A. native who grapples with her relationship to China, Leah struggles with feeling like she doesn’t fully belong to either place, another concept pulled from Liang’s own life. She grew up moving between China and Australia multiple times, and remembers how important it was to her to not forget how to speak Chinese, a tether to home.

“I’ve always seen language as a means of connection, and how we truly know each other, and so to not have that [connection] was so scary,” said Liang. “That was a very personal aspect of the story for me, because I know that it’s not just me who has lived through this. It’s something that a lot of people growing up in the diaspora community have experienced.”

Marlette added, “I love how as you see Leah falling in love with China, you can also see her falling in love with herself.” Ultimately, it is a love of self that helps Leah find a love for life, and maybe a special someone.

“I wanted the relationship to mirror the process of self-discovery,” Liang said. “She’s coming to terms with all of these different versions of herself, all these different eras. It’s [about] just having that affirmation and being known.”

With two releases this year and a forthcoming book tour, Liang isn’t slowing down. Editor Schonfeld describes her as “a fountain of wonderful ideas.” Up next on her release schedule is I Could Give You the Moon, slated for 2026, a spin-off of her debut book, If You Could See the Sun, as well as an adult project that “leans into romance in a different way,” according to Liang.

As her catalogue continues to expand, Liang hopes to continue to evolve alongside her characters, who all “represent different stages of my life.” Marlette said of Liang’s future, “Wherever she wants to go, I’m excited to see what excites her and what stories she wants to tell, because I think that she’s going to surprise all of us.”