“It is what I do full-time now, but I had never considered myself a storyteller, actually,” admits Tea Ho. The Viet-American refugee has some pretty cool credits to their name, considering. Their homepage bio states “getting inducted into a now-defunct secret society,” receiving a phone call from their uncle — after he died (which also partly inspired a series they co-wrote with Lee Hubilla "about a young Filipina millennial whose dad pressures her to take over the family business of ghost hunting” that’s under option) — and being a fellow in Emmy® winner Lena Waithe’s inaugural Hillman Grad Mentorship Lab. And there’s more.

“[My mom and sister] were always the ones who, you know, when we were living in a one-bedroom apartment every night they would tell these awesome stories from true ones of our family back in Vietnam, to more funny tales. But it wasn't until the mid-2010s when there was a whole slate of white-washed Asian characters when I found myself complaining a ton about it. Eventually, I realized that this is just what happens when the only people who are telling stories are white people. And though I hadn't considered myself a storyteller, I had been listening to all these TED talks about grit and perseverance and growth mindset. So I decided that I didn't know if I was naturally talented or not, but it didn't matter. I cared about it. So I was going to buckle down and learn.”

That grit and perseverance turned into taking all the screenwriting classes Ho could find, making a web series based on the first script they ever wrote, and working on sets to get their foot in the industry door.

“I got my start in writing through the comedy scene; with the Magnet Theater doing sketch and improv, and I learned very quickly that people absorb a lot more information when they're laughing.”

Ho’s centered yet relaxed vibes shine through when they’re talking about their writing.

“I have a lot of serious subjects I like to talk about. I write about intergenerational trauma, I've written about the Vietnam War, I've written about depression. But these can be very heavy messages. And the people who sometimes need to hear about them are not always in the mindset of wanting to sit down and take something in where they feel like they're being preached to, so adding an element of comedy in there I think helps — it's like a little bit of sugar that helps the medicine go down. So I would say that my writing balances lightness and darkness; it balances levity with more difficult topics, and there always needs to be a bit of both. I like to say that I write comedies that make people cry,” they said.

“You build tension and then you release it. So whether you're writing drama or comedy, you're working with tension,” Ho says. That blurring of the genre lines has led to them finding they’re picking a lane more in terms of length than anything else.

“I find more and more that things are divided into half-hour or hour-long rather than necessarily just genre because more and more shows are genre-bending. And despite having this comedy background, I’m working on HBO’s The Sympathizer and that is an hour-long spy thriller. But even then, you know, that show has elements of comedy.”

Ho’s first experience in a room — one with a show with no less than Robert Downey Jr. attached — has been amazing, from the people to the learning experience it’s given them.

“I can't believe that my first experience in a writers room is on HBO. When that book came out, I read it (The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen). I loved it. I follow the author on Twitter, on Instagram; I've read all of his op-eds. So when there was first news that the show was even being made, I thought, ‘wow, it would be amazing to work on that.’ Then when I got my manager last year, one of the first things that I sent him was the Deadline article [about The Sympathizer] and said, ‘I want to be on the show. Get me on the show.’ He actually had a contact with a production company that worked with it and found out that they weren't staffing, and I kind of forgot about it.”

So Ho did what writers should do: They kept writing and honing their craft.

“[I worked] on this other script that takes place at a post-Vietnam War reeducation camp. It's a dark comedy, inspired by how my parents met when my dad was a prisoner in a reeducation camp. And then, all of a sudden, they were looking for writers. So my manager sent in my script that I was working on and by the next day, they said that they wanted to talk to me for it — the showrunner Don McKellar, a producer from Team Downey, and a producer from A24. And it was just a really wonderful conversation. They offered me a writers assistant position, which I very happily took on and it's been such an exciting learning experience. I couldn't have asked for a kinder, more supportive, thoughtful room. Don has been so encouraging the whole time. He was like, ‘Everyone in this room is equal. There's no hierarchy. I want to hear everyone's ideas.’”

That doesn’t mean it’s always easy to pitch right out of the gate.

“The first few times are really nerve-wracking! I’d say something and then I would write on a Post-it Note, ‘Do not speak again.’ On the second day, Don was like, ‘Why didn't you talk more?’ and I told him about my Post-it Note and he was like, 'No, don't do that. Your voice matters.’”

The majority of New York-based Ho’s screenwriting experience has been over Zoom — from their Giant Leap Development Accelerator for AAPI stories to The Sympathizer room — and they hope those types of rooms continue.

“It brings in so many voices from so many different places and that just opens up more opportunities for people.”

As for the future, Ho says, “I would love to be staffed because I feel like I have so much to learn and I really enjoy the collaborative work environment. I like bouncing ideas off of people and just the energy of a room. Meanwhile, I would also like to develop my own projects because I have a lot of stories that I want to tell.”

What Ho finds helps is keeping a very balanced, focused eye on the dream versus the goal.

“The dream is to get a development deal. Those are things that can come to me, but I can't control those. So my goals are 100 percent of things that I can control. You know, write a pilot, submit to 10 things, reach out to fellow writers to give feedback. These are all things that I can do. And I celebrate and pat myself on the back when I do them; I consider them a step towards getting to the dream. If I was constantly waiting for the opportunity to come to me, waiting to be chosen and getting rejected from that, and deciding on whether or not I was succeeding or whether or not I was worthy based on things that other people made decisions on — that was really disheartening. So shifting my mindset there, I think, has helped me continue on and just to focus on the work that I can do.”

Excellent advice for every screenwriter working their way up the ranks. That, and “I work to help other people reach their goals, and that puts me in a mindset of celebrating other people's successes.”

Celebrating each other through good stories onscreen and behind the scenes is exactly what this business is — and should be — about.