A perfect Sunday with... Wesley Chu
Gattaca, youtiao and how Taylor Swift helped Wesley climb a mountain!
Every week, a top writer, artist or creator reveal how they’d fill their perfect Sunday, sharing their favourite comfort reads, movies, food… anything that would make their weekend great. Today, it’s the turn of author of The Art of Prophecy, Wesley Chu.
Wesley’s perfect Sunday… brunch
There’s a Taiwanese breakfast that my mom used to make that I miss terribly. It’s fried dough sticks called youtiao—sort of like a puffy churro but without the sugar—that you dip into sweetened soy milk. It was always a delicacy because she made it from scratch. It would take her hours to make, roll, and fry the dough. She would actually mash and strain the soy milk the day before.
Many dim sum restaurants will have this, so if you’re curious give it a shot. The key though is that the soy milk has to be hot.
Wesley’s perfect Sunday… read
I’m currently on a genre-mixing binge where you read a book that can straddle multiple categories. Recently, I just finished Laura Lam’s wonderful Dragonfall, which is an epic fantasy with an amazing love story, or is it a great love set in an epic fantasy setting?
Either way, the book was a perfect date for a long, lazy Sunday. The book has awesome dragons and hot romance all wrapped up in Lam’s gorgeous prose.
Wesley’s perfect Sunday… comic
Comics and graphic novels are like my amuse bouche. I like to read one in between big chonky epic fantasy books. Right now I’m reading Marvel’s Oz: The Complete Collection with my six-year-old.
I grew up on The Wizard of Oz books, and read all fifteen L. Frank Baum books in the original series when I first immigrated to the US as a kid. It was how I learned English. It’s pretty awesome that I get to revisit this classic now with my own kids.
Wesley’s perfect Sunday… movie
This is a weird choice, but my favorite Sunday movie is Gattaca. It’s the one movie that has always spoken to me on a deep level, and the story that helped drag me across the finish line toward publication when I was still an aspiring novelist.
Whenever I’m faced with a hard week ahead, I pop in Gattaca with Ethan Hawke & Uma Thurman (that’s how they met!) and don’t save anything for the swim back.
Wesley’s perfect Sunday… TV binge
Sunday is always Ted Lasso day. With everything going on in the world, I just need levity in my life right before diving back into the work week.
Wesley’s perfect Sunday… podcast
I’m honestly not a podcast/audiobook guy. The last time I tried to listen to one was when I summited Kilimanjaro, which was a mistake. The thing about listening to the spoken word is that I can’t just play it in the background. I have to listen to every word, which keeps me very much in the present.
In my case, I didn’t train for Kilimanjaro (I was on book deadline!) so the first two days of the hike were awful. It was made harder by the fact I was trying to listen to Robert Jackson’s excellent City of Stairs, because I was paying attention and felt every single step up that mountain. Not gonna lie; I almost quit, except it’s honestly difficult to quit a mountain. It usually involves helicopters or, in this case, a wheelbarrow.
Luckily, on day three, I switched it up and….
Wesley’s perfect Sunday… album
…popped in Taylor Swift’s 1984. For the next four days of the hike all the way up to Uhuru Peak, I just shook it off. 😊
Wesley’s perfect Sunday… treat
This is a simple and probably lame answer, but I’m a late bloomer with kids. I’m closing in on fifty and have a three and six-year-old. The coolest thing about the experience is I’m playing games with my kids that I used to play when I was their age. Like, all three of us make the exact same Transformer transforming sounds!
The Art of Prophecy by Wesley Chu is out now from Daphne Press.
So many stories begin the same way: With a prophecy. A chosen one. And the inevitable quest to slay a villain, save the kingdom, and fulfil a grand destiny. But this is not that kind of story. . .
It does begin with a prophecy: A child will rise to defeat the Eternal Khan, a cruel immortal god-king, and save the kingdom. And that prophecy did anoint a hero, Jian, raised since birth in luxury and splendour, and celebrated before he has won a single battle. But that’s when the story hits its first twist: The prophecy is wrong.
What follows is a story more wondrous than any prophecy could foresee, and with many unexpected heroes: Taishi, an older woman who is the greatest grandmaster of magical martial arts in the kingdom but who thought her adventuring days were all behind her; Sali, a straitlaced warrior who learns the rules may no longer apply when the leader to whom she pledged her life is gone; and Qisami, a chaotic assassin who takes a little too much pleasure in the kill. And Jian himself, who has to find a way to become what he no longer believes he can be—a hero after all.
Wesley Chu is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twelve published novels, including Time Salvager, The Rise of Io, and The Walking Dead: Typhoon. He won the Astounding Award for Best New Writer. His debut, The Lives of Tao, won the Young Adult Library Services Association’s Alex Award. He is also the co-author of a #1 bestselling series with Cassandra Clare. Chu is an accomplished martial artist and a former member of the Screen Actors Guild. He has acted in film and television, worked as a model and stuntman, and summited Kilimanjaro. He currently resides in Los Angeles with his wife and two boys. The Art of Prophecy has been optioned for TV.