Each month we celebrate an Australian debut release of fiction or non-fiction in the Kill Your Darlings Debut Spotlight feature. For August that debut is Jade and Emerald by Michelle See-Tho (Penguin Random House), a fierce and deeply felt novel about the joys and pains of growing up, of accepting who you are and where you come from.
Congratulations on winning the 2023 Penguin Literary Prize! Can you tell us about that experience?
Thank you so much! I wrote that manuscript pretty much all through the KYD Mentors Program with Melanie Cheng. At the end of it, I had a full manuscript, and Melanie and I made a plan together that I would pitch to unpublished manuscript prizes to start with. So I did that and I got lots of rejections—I think it was five or six prizes that I’d entered.
So by the time I entered the Penguin Literary Prize, I was already thinking this is another prize that’s going to reject me. When I got shortlisted, that was huge! Then when I won, it was an even bigger shock and I really am still so honoured, so grateful, still counting my lucky stars that I had such a great opportunity and that my novel is now out in the world.
You’ve written in a variety of styles including non-fiction, short stories and now a novel! Does your writing practice differ between genres?
For me, the writing practice between non-fiction and fiction starts and ends the same. I’ll usually start with a brain dump of ideas, or characters or settings if it’s fiction, and I’ll always end with finetuning sentences and checking grammar and punctuation.
The biggest difference is in the research. For non-fiction, you’re always trying to make sure you do enough research to back up an argument or find evidence to support what you’re trying to say. Whereas with fiction, the research is in trying to make the story sound authentic.
Also in fiction, there’s a lot more dialogue, so I would usually have fake conversations in my head, or sometimes aloud, to try and make sure that the dialogue sounded realistic.
You participated in KYD’s Mentor Program back in 2022. What was the best piece of advice you received from your mentor that you’d like to pass onto other writers?
I learned a lot in the mentorship! But if I had to pick only one piece of advice to pass on, it would be that similes can convey so much about a character or narrator. Previously, I really loved similes and I liked using them, but I think I didn’t know how to use them very effectively. Saying something is ‘pink like marshmallows’ is different to ‘pink like rose petals’ and different to ‘pink like flesh’.
Now in Jade and Emerald, there are a lot of descriptions where Lei Ling uses something from her existing life to describe something in her new life. For example, saying that the Chanel logo looks like an algebra X, and I think (I hope!) it’s an effective way of not only describing something but of conveying Lei Ling’s character and her history.
Having set the book in the late 90s, how did you go about creating that immersive time period?
I chose to set Jade and Emerald in 1999 because I wanted it to be from the perspective of a young person, but I know that no one sniffs out an imposter like a teenager! So in order to make the voice authentic, I set it in a time that I grew up in. At first, I just wrote the pop culture references from memory. Then when I started to research, I realised that my memory wasn’t one hundred per cent accurate so I had to change a few things around in keeping with what actually was released and popular in 1999.
I had a lot of fun writing it, because things like Gameboy, Pokémon, Tamagotchis, Sabrina the Teenage Witch—they’re all big parts of my childhood. It was really nostalgic for me, so I hope it’s nostalgic for anyone who grew up in that time period to read as well.
What books have you loved lately and what’s on your TBR pile?
I just finished Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-reum, translated by Shanna Tan. It is a lovely, cosy and heartwarming read—great for lovers of books (obviously) but also for lovers of coffee.
I am about to read The Burrow by Melanie Cheng. Obviously, Mel is my mentor, so it sounds like there’s a bit of cross-promotion there. But, really, I chose her because I just admired her writing so much and I can’t wait to read her upcoming novel.
You can pick up a copy of Jade and Emerald at your local bookstore today.
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