My Grandfather’s Rojak has a ‘grandmother’ story behind it because of how long and unusual the collaboration and process has been.
This is my 47th picture book and Alycia’s 1st.
I had taken part in Scholastic’s Picture Book Award competition three times earlier with experienced illustrators and did not get anywhere near being shortlisted. Being a biennial competition, that spanned 6 years.
For my 4th try, I wondered what I could do differently.
I was prompted to a name – Alycia Teo.
Alycia was a young Book Council staff who had been on the team involved in organising the Asian Festival of Children’s Content. We didn’t really know each other. Just before she left Book Council, we had a fleeting conversation where she had mentioned that she wanted to dabble a bit more in illustrations.
When I contacted Alycia, she was in between jobs. She had just returned from a six-month trip around New Zealand on her exploratory art journey.
At that time, I had only seen a couple of small spot illustrations that she had done as she didn’t have a portfolio. I went with that and asked if she would like to team up with me to submit an entry for the Scholastic competition.
She said yes.
I wrote my manuscript and Alycia had to come up with a full black and white storyboard plus a few fully coloured illustrations for our competition submission. At that time, I had my hands full with Littworld, an international Christian publishing conference that I was involved in organising and got down to writing the manuscript late. Then, Alycia had difficulty meeting the competition deadline as she was in the midst of looking for a new job.
Fortuitously, the competition deadline was extended. With an extra month, we managed to cobble our submission together.
One month after we submitted our entry in January 2019, my mum passed on.
Alycia came for the wake.
The results for the competition were announced on 5th September 2019 at Asian Festival of Children’s content, which was my late mum’s birthday. We placed top three in the competition.
Our book process went through many delays – Covid being the biggest delay which pushed back publication date and the start process.
It was followed by more delays when Alycia started planning for her wedding. Her wedding plans were in a flux with the constantly changing Safe Management Measures on guest numbers allowed at weddings as Singapore battled Covid. I attended her wedding via Zoom due to these measures.
And amidst all that, the book went on hold again.
For my first book Prince Bear & Pauper Bear, I was a 1st time author working with a 1st time illustrator.
After that, I only worked with experienced illustrators. As I churned out each new book (or ‘chiong’ in Singlish speak), I became more ‘efficient’ with my comments and turnaround. Sometimes, there was one initial meeting (or none). Everything else was dealt with through email very expeditiously.
My Grandfather’s Rojak is the 1st book where I had many meals with my illustrator.
I learnt to slow down to bring Alycia up to speed with the things to take note of when illustrating a picture book, since this was her first.
She appreciated discussing and getting feedback to her sketches and drafts.
We had many more conversations which had nothing to do with the creative work at hand.
Through our book journey together, we journeyed through several life markers together:
Alycia was searching for job direction.
She found a new job.
We submitted our competition entry in end Jan 2019.
My mum passed away in end Feb 2019.
We won 2nd runner up at AFCC in Sept 2019.
Our book was put on hold because of Covid.
Our book was put on hold because of Alycia’s wedding planning.
Alycia got married.
She started another new job.
One week later, My Grandfather’s Rojak was launched at AFCC 2023.
Through this unusually long journey, I saw God’s hand through the 4 ½ years from our joint submission to publication. We forged a new and precious friendship. We met several times and had many deep spiritual conversations about life. And we kept each other in prayer through several things.
In the process, God led me to unwittingly mentor Alycia through the process of birthing a book. (How did I not notice that till now? Lol.)
In My Grandfather’s Rojak, Guo’s teacher asked him and his classmates to do something differently for their school holiday project. Guo grappled with it as he did things in a set routine daily.
As I reflect on our just-published book, I now see how my creative process in this book journey paralleled Guo’s journey. I did this project differently. Like Guo, I emerged with a new perspective.
And God, my teacher, continues to teach me new things.
Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness;
give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.
– Psalm 86:11
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