Kiwis smashing it abroad: From Wattpad to New York Times bestseller

Across borders and industries, New Zealanders are carving out space, building influence and exporting creativity. In this series, RNZ speaks to Kiwis making their mark abroad, those coming home, and those living somewhere in between.

Chloe Gong was 19 when she wrote her debut novel, a book that catapulted the Auckland writer onto the New York Times bestseller list and secured her a major publishing deal.

She was also named one of Forbes' 30 Under 30 for 2024.

Now 27, Gong's overnight success belies a much longer apprenticeship: she has been writing since her early teens, moving from curating paranormal series on Wattpad to full-length original novels, and now to bestselling trilogies that span Shakespearean retellings and dystopian cyberpunk young adult fiction.

Although her job is something she says she "kind of stumbled into", Gong considers herself lucky that her first book found such immediate success. Growing up in New Zealand, she says, many young people absorb a kind of "stay realistic syndrome".

"I've especially heard from high school students from New Zealand who have reached out to me and been like, 'I never would have thought this was possible until you did it and now I really want to chase my dreams as well'."

Despite launching a global career at a young age, Gong still followed a familiar traditional path, graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in English and International Politics. "Oh my God, my parents would kill me [if she didn't go to university]," she jokes.

Although her family didn't push her academically — aside from her mother's brief hope she might attend business school — Gong was always self-motivated. At Rangitoto College, she set her sights early on US universities, studying for the SATs and navigating the American college application process.

Yet it was the looseness of Kiwi childhood that, she believes, nurtured her creativity most.

"I felt like I had so much time to daydream as a kid. I had so much time to run around my backyard to pick up sticks and make little mud potions and just daydream and use my imagination that I think I became a writer and a storyteller, because I had this kind of freedom to run around, to just do nothing and like stare at my backyard and see what came out of that.

"I don't know if that would have been the same if I'd been raised in New York or something, because it's so busy here. Like kids are pushed to do like a thousand things at all times."

Her eventual move to New York after high school, however, was strategic. Gong wanted to tell representative stories with Asian characters — narratives she felt might struggle to gain traction in New Zealand's relatively small market without first proving themselves elsewhere.

"I think there's kind of a sentiment where it's we care about the stories that are explicitly about New Zealand and why it's very, very clear like we should care about this.

"I knew I wanted to find a big market that would be more willing to take a risk on it. And when I came back, maybe that would then open the doors for stories, especially by like Asian New Zealanders and narratives that are a little outside what we are used to, because you need to take a risk before that enters the mainstream. Someone has to do it."

Now based in the US, Gong recently released Cold Wire, is deep into its sequel, and will close out an epic fantasy trilogy later this year.

She tries to return to New Zealand at least once a year — trips that function as both a physical homecoming and a return to that high school girl whose imagination soared far and wide.

"Unfortunately, my deadlines are always so intense that even if I'm on vacation at home, I'm still very much locked in.

"I kind of return to my high school self because that's the last time I spent a very, very long time in New Zealand. And it both means I can kind of relax in a way where nothing's that serious…

"Things feel slower, calmer. At the same time, I still can't drive. So anytime I'm back home, I know I'm home because I have to ask my mom for a ride everywhere."