Lee-Ann Khoh Interview Published on: 07, Apr 2022

I grew up in Perth, Western Australia – the most isolated capital city in the world. My parents immigrated from Malaysia and my first language was a Chinese dialect called Hokkien, but I have to admit I think almost exclusively in English these days.

I didn't perform as a child, but I did like singing around the house. I think I got too self-conscious when I was around 11 or so, and didn't pick it up again until I was an adult.

I used to spend entire weekends just reading books when I was growing up, so it would be a lot but I couldn't give you a number.

My parents took me to the library every three weeks when I was a kid and I got to max out our family's library cards and devour books. I’ll always be grateful for that. I started writing from an early age too, partly because I was very shy and struggled to express myself verbally.

I remember writing a story about anthropomorphic mice that I thought was amazing at the time, but it probably wasn't. Maybe some version of it could see the light of day eventually. Maybe.

I approached the book as if it would be the last thing I ever wrote, so even though it’s a work of fiction, there is a lot of myself and my passions in it. Jade, the main character, struggles with her cultural identity and mental health, so I drew on some of my experiences for that. She also loves Bon Jovi and Star Trek, as do I – though she has conversations with Deanna Troi, which I’ve never done. But I did meet Marina Sirtis, who played Troi, at a convention several years before I wrote this book. She was delightful despite being nothing like her character.

I can be easily distracted and have a habit of procrastinating. Not to mention, there's so much Star Trek happening at the moment and I am here for it!

That I’m calm, in control, and know what I’m doing.

In all honesty, I faffed around a bit after graduating, before doing some self-reflection and deciding to go back to what always used to make me happy – the library.

That they couldn’t put down my book and it made them cry. Not that I want to make people cry, but I do want them to connect with my stories. People telling me they're looking forward to my next book is a lovely compliment too.

I’m not sure I had too many misconceptions by the time I became a published author as I’d spent a long time weighing up traditional and independent publishing before making my decision with my eyes open. But I did dream of writing books when I was a kid and back then I was probably naive enough to think it would just happen and I'd live off book sales. So naive. Luckily I have a day job I love.

Charlie from The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

That would be amazing. I’d freak out! But I’d hopefully hold it together long enough to introduce myself and answer the question.

I'm a bit reluctant to say too much in case this ends up not being the next book... but I'm currently working on a novel that explores an incident at a school from multiple perspectives, which combine to piece together what happened.

I found it from a list of highly rated services on the Alliance of Independent Authors website. I'm pretty happy. The book mockups are great for social media posts and just make my life a lot easier.