About Me
As a little girl in Malaysia, I was Ariel in the ocean singing “Part of Your World” to a Eurocentric publishing industry that felt unreachable. But while other interests came and go, I simply could not stop writing. I started reading at just over one years old, a fact my Asian mother prides herself in and perhaps a reason why I simply couldn't stop.
I began writing movies and novellas at the age of nine, self-publishing a novel by the age of ten and a collection of poems by the age of twelve. However, my main characters always had last names like "Jones" and blue or green eyes because I believed they had to in order to be "protagonist material."
As a creative writing major in university in America, I had a revelation: Voices like mine deserve to be equally loud, if not louder. Faces like mine could be, must be main characters. Fueled by this newfound passion, I began writing stories inspired by my family history and culture in Malaysia.
In response to the Atlanta Spa Shootings of March 2021, I founded a literary arts exhibition on my campus called "Unveiling the Invisible" displaying API faculty and students' original writings and art pieces, including my very own poem "Yellow Bodies." The exhibition informed more than 1,000 people of hate crimes and channeled API voices. The experience fostered a profound love in me for projecting such stories.
I began to gain recognition for my Malaysian writing, winning First Place for Creative Nonfiction and Third Place for Short Story in my university's 2022 writing competition. However, I struggled with feeling responsible for others' confusion and ignorance toward my writing as the only non-white in most workshops. But I learned from a professor and Toni Morrison that my writing is mine and I do not owe it to anyone to explain my culture through their Western lens. I took their advice, and I’ve never looked back.
Everything changed in the summer of 2022 when I was notified that my short story "Ready or Not, Here I Come" inspired by how my grandfather saved my father's life in Malaysia’s May 13, 1969 racial riots had been accepted for publication in the 2023 Issue of Sigma Tau Delta’s Rectangle cataloged in the Library of Congress. That put my foot on the accelerator of my writing and publishing career.
In February of 2023, I received the best phone call of my life: A call from Penguin Random House informing me I was being offered the position of Editorial Intern at their amazing imprint Kokila. This was more than a dream come true. I had never even dreamed of it because the little girl in Malaysia did not know she could. And yet it came true. Kokila quickly became home, and I fell in love with the incredible team and their mission to project diverse voices in Children's and Young Adult literature. Talk about a perfect match! I bonded with and worked closely under the mentorship of editors Namrata Tripathi, Zareen Jaffery, and Joanna Cardenas and helped offer editorial comments for seven different books by authors such as Randy Ribay, Andrea Wang, and Grace Shim, ranging from picture books to Young Adult. I also had the privilege of meeting with several authors and discussing their projects, as well as personally connecting with them!
In March of 2023, the ride got wilder. At the International Sigma Tau Delta English Honors Convention, my poetry collection "Malayan Chorus, our Voices Arise, Our Harmonies Become the Melodies of Song-Story" resurrecting the voices of Malaysia’s World War Two victims won First Place in Original Poetry, and my creative nonfiction piece "Bow Lower, for Its Heart Lies in the Ground" reminiscing childhood Chinese New Years won Second Place for the Common Reader Award. It was as if an all-knowing voice was telling me that I was on the right path. That after so many years of feeling invisible and misplaced, once I decided to tell unapologetically Malaysian stories, all these amazing gifts started coming my way and affirming my heart's mission.
Back in the Spring of 2022, I got the idea to write a Young Adult novel inspired by my grandmother's mysterious origins and the historically shrouded Malaysian experience during the Japanese Occupation of World War Two. I spent six months researching in the trenches of family history, survivor interviews, and newspaper records and then five months spilling it all out onto Google Docs. On April 14, 2023- three days after turning twenty- I finished the book of my heart.
Now I am embarking on the ever thrilling and nerve-wrecking journey of querying literary agents!
There have been too many landmarks on this wild road trip, but these are the brightest and most unexpected ones that have helped shape me into the writer I am today. And I can't wait for more ahead!
On this wild ride of my writing and publishing journey, I have realized I am not Ariel singing "Part of Your World." Instead, I could make this whole new world my own.
