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Quick six with Michelle See-Tho, author of ‘Jade and Emerald’

Michelle See-Tho is the author of Jade and Emerald, which won the 2023 Penguin Literary Prize in manuscript form. Now, Michelle’s first novel is out in the world and we welcomed her to the store to chat about the book, its characters, and her writing process. We recommend Jade and Emerald as a great read for lovers of contemporary fiction, as well as passionate upper Young Adult readers, as this is a compelling coming-of-age story that tackles some big themes in a deft and clever way.

Have a read of our interview with Michelle below, and get your signed copy of Jade and Emerald in store.

Read more about the book here.

1. Jade & Emerald follows young Lei Ling Wen as she is pulled between two very different worlds and women: the world of her mother, a first-generation migrant from Malaysia who has worked hard to build a safe and stable life in Australia, and Gigi, a glamorous Malaysian woman whose family money grants her access to a totally different kind of life. Can you introduce us to Lei and how she perceives both her mother and Gigi at the start of the novel?

At the start, Lei Ling is very lonely. She doesn’t have many friends – certainly none she can relate to – and her strict mother is her only family. Lei Ling holds both fear and resentment towards her mother. Her mother punishes her intensely for any wrongdoing, and also bars her from doing things that seem ‘normal’ like going to friend’s houses or wearing nail polish. Then Lei Ling meets Gigi, who is everything her mother is not: rich, fun, generous. Gigi is unlike anyone she’s ever met before and she’s intrigued and spellbound by this new world. So Lei Ling starts to crave more of the things that Gigi can give her.

2. Lei Ling’s mother, Jing Fei, is a really interesting character. She is portrayed as harsh, sometimes cruel, and Lei often struggles to connect with and understand her mother. Can you talk a little bit about Jing Fei and the central mother/daughter relationship in the book? It is such a source of tension and discovery!

In Lei Ling’s eyes, her mother is a source of pain. Jing Fei is so strict and frugal, and her actions are always at odds with Lei Ling’s. But of course there are moments of love as well – Jing Fei spends time making Lei Ling’s favourite meals, as food is sort of a love language for her. She also expresses pride in Lei Ling’s academic potential. Jing Fei has migrated to Australia from Malaysia on her own, and she’s a single mother. She has sacrificed so much for her daughter. With that in mind, it makes sense that she wants to push Lei Ling to succeed. And that she’s always stressed!

3. The novel is set in the ’90s, and there’s some fantastic 90s nostalgia woven through the story, which I loved! The Game Boy Colours, the Tamagotchis, fashion references, technology. This feels like it was a really fun part of the book to write. Can you tell us a bit about the temporal setting?

That’s so nice to hear! I wanted Jade and Emerald to be from a young person’s point of view, and no one sniffs out an imposter like a teenager. So to make the story feel genuine, I decided to set it in a time when I grew up. I used technology and pop culture from my own experience. Unlike Lei Ling, I was lucky enough to have my own Tamagotchi and Game Boy, complete with Pokémon Blue. Likewise, Sabrina The Teenage Witch was one of many TV shows I watched in that era. I had a lot of fun revisiting the tech and pop culture as I wrote. It was very nostalgic for me, and I hope it will be for readers too.

4. Where did the idea for the book first come from?

I always knew I wanted to write ‘a’ novel, but I didn’t know what it was going to be about. I work as a copywriter in advertising, which involves thinking of ideas as well. We often go by this principle of ‘quantity leads to quality’. Whenever I’ve been concentrating on a brief, suddenly I’ll have an idea at a very convenient time like in the shower or when I’m trying to sleep. Our brains work in funny ways! So with the novel, I had heaps of different thoughts, and most of them were terrible or unoriginal. Then, one day when we were in lockdown, I was drying my hair and this idea of an unlikely friendship literally popped into my head. In hindsight I can kind of see where it emerged from. Some recurring themes in my previous ideas were class, loneliness, friendships/relationships and coming-of-age. I think all those bad ideas allowed my brain to subconsciously develop this story.

5. I’ve spoken to a few writers about their debut novels, and it’s always interesting to find out when a first book isn’t a writer’s first manuscript. Is Jade & Emerald the first novel you’ve written? Can you tell us a bit about your writing journey up to winning the 2023 Penguin Literary Prize (and congratulations by the way!).

Thank you! Technically it’s not the first manuscript I’ve attempted. But it was the first idea that I thought could become a novel-length work, with a narrative arc that could pull a reader through. I have written a lot of shorter pieces – short stories, essays, articles. My very first published piece was actually a short story in a VCE lift-out in The Age, when I was sixteen. Since then I’ve written for Kill Your Darlings, Meanjin, Overland, The Big Issue and some others. And as a copywriter I have written quite a few ads too!

6. What are you working on at the moment? What’s in the pipeline at the moment—or is your writing on hold while you focus on bringing Jade & Emerald out into the world?

I do have ideas in various notebooks and clogging up my hard drive. Hopefully there’s something in there that I could turn into another book in future. But at the moment Jade and Emerald is taking up all my mental capacity! So I definitely want to write a second novel, but I don’t have anything solid. Yet.

Get your copy here!