Highlights
- Remy Lai is a joint winner of this year’s PM’s Literature Awards for Fly on the Wall.
- Ms Lai is an Indonesian-born Singaporean children’s author-illustrator who lives in Brisbane.
- She writes graphic novels for kids aged 8-12 years-old.
It never occurred to Remy Lai that she could become a book author and illustrator.
Having fostered a passion for drawing and writing from a young age, it took right up until university for her to realise she could have an “actual job” in publishing.
Her parents had imagined she’d become a doctor based on her strong grades throughout her school years.
Her mum's initial reaction to her chosen career path did not surprise her.
“My mum was like, what!?” she laughs.
She says the outlook is understandable considering her family’s Chinese and migrant background.
“They would rather I have a more stable job. Being an author is not the most stable job in the world.”
Bringing stories to life
Fast forward a number of years, Ms Lai has published three books, her second- Fly on the Wall - recently won the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for children’s literature.
Ms Lai was handed $40,000 as a joint winner of the category.
The book tells the story of 12-year-old Henry Khoo who goes on a solo international flight to prove his independence to his overprotective, “helicopter” family.
“This one is not based on my own experience. My parents aren’t very overprotective,” she tells SBS Chinese.
“I think in general they gave me a lot of freedom.”
While Fly on the Wall is about a migrant family who has been in Australia for a long time, her first book focuses on new arrivals.
Pie in the Sky follows the tale of two brothers who move to Australia without knowing much English.
“This one is very heavily inspired by my own experience because … I moved to Singapore from Indonesia when I was about nine.
“That was when I first learned English, so I know very well how it feels to move to a new country when you don’t speak the language,” she says.
Ms Lai describes her books as graphic novel hybrids, containing “lots” of words and pictures.
Starring her own dog
The full-time author-illustrator based in Brisbane published her third book, Pawcasso, this year.
She lives with her two dogs, Poop-Roller and Bossy Boots, and uses them as prototypes for characters in her books.
“In this book his [Poop-Roller’s] name is Maomi, which is Mandarin [Chinese] for cat,” says Ms Lai.
When asked how to write books that children love to read, she says she avoids the mentality of wanting to preach or instruct them.
Remy Lai uses her own pets for inspiration in her books. Source: A&U Children's
“If I write a book with that kind of mindset, I think the book would be very didactic,” she says having read a lot of comic books as a child.
“I know as a kid I didn’t like reading books that are shoving lessons down by throat,” she adds.
Ms Lai is now working on two more books to be released in April next year.
