Margaret Chiu Greanias: Hello. My name is Margaret Chiu Greanias, and I am the author of Amah Faraway. Amah Farway is about a girl named Kylie who is growing up in the United States while her Amah, which is the Taiwanese word for grandmother, lives far away in Taipei. Because of the distance they mainly video chat to stay in touch. When Kylie visits Amah for the first time, the customs, the food, the language, the far away family, even Amah, feel unfamiliar to her.

The story follows Kylie and Amah through Taipei and is about how Kylie's feelings change over the course of her visit. Amah Faraway was inspired by my own memories of my relationship with my Amah. Like Kylie, I grew up in the United States, and my Amah lived far away in Taipei. We didn't see each other very often, so at the start of each of our rare visits she always felt a bit unfamiliar to me. And it would take me some time to warm up. Of course, at the end of our visits, you couldn't tear me away from her.

While writing the book, I drew from my memories of taking my children to visit Taiwan. When I was planning the trip, they asked me if they really had to go and why, but of course we went anyway. My mom was already there for an extended visit, so we stayed with her. On one of the first days of our visit she threw a huge family banquet. We had 14 tables of 10 relatives each, most of whom we had never met. There were so many courses and so much delicious food, but my kids ate rice, and I wondered what they would eat for the next eight days. That visit my mom dragged us all over Taiwan to show us the sites she was so proud of. By the end of the trip my kids were having a great time. We haven't been back to Taiwan since, but they asked me when we can go back, and I hope that we can visit again someday soon.

I had come across a reverse poem a while back, and I was amazed by how the poem could be read normally, and it could also be read in reverse. The difference between the two readings was that the meaning changed, but also the tone changed dramatically. And so I really wanted to write a story using this type of structure, but I needed to find the right story that would work. Luckily, I had been wanting to write about my relationship with my Amah for a really long time, because whenever I think about my childhood she's a really big influence in it. Because I was a shy child and we didn't see each other very often, so whenever we did see each other I was always shy in the beginning, and then somewhere in the middle I warmed up and became very, very close to her. That is why I decided that my story about my Amah would be the perfect one to write with this reverse structure.

Now I'd like to share some lines from Amah Faraway. I think these lines are a good demonstration of the reverse structure that I used in this book.

It was a brand new day, the day they visited the hot springs. Kylie changed. After, she dipped a toe in the water. Amah beckoned, "Kylie! Lái! Lái! Come, come."

Kylie loves splashing, and the water was warm. Should she? Could she? She could. She should. The water was warm and Kylie loved splashing.

"Come, come. Lái! Lái!," Kylie beckoned. "Amah." After she dipped a toe in the water, Kylie changed. The day they visited the hot springs, it was a brand new day.