A couple of years ago, I decided to do a series of books about the first Asian actresses in Hollywood: Anna May Wong, Nancy Kwan, Frances Ngyuen, Lucy Liu and Michelle Yeoh. 
That didn't seem very feasible at the time, so I decided to focus on one actress: Michelle Yeoh. Why? Firstly, she came from Mum's hometown of Ipoh in Malaysia. Second, her late dad and my mum were cousins (how distant I have no idea). The Yeohs practically populated that small mining town. 

In an age where movies were not readily available in Malaysia. I guess the Yeohs had nothing better to do than populate the town. I think both my maternal and paternal grandparents had around nine kids each.
When my Dad was Singapore's Commissioner to Hong Kong, my parents would meet Michelle at social events in Hong Kong when she was married to her first husband Dickson Poon, but they did not remain in touch after they left Hong Kong.
I've met Michelle about three times in my life, so I can't say I know her but she's acknowledged we're cousins. But by this stage I must admit she would probably claim I'm sort of nutter.



Mum meets Michelle for the first time in over 20 years

Anyway, Michelle had been in show business for 40 years and in Hong Kong and Hollywood, the only actress from SEA to have achieved that feat, and at the time she didn't have a picture book biography on the market, so I called my illustrator Soefara and asked if she would be interested in illustrating the book.
Soefara  jumped at the chance. She was raving about Michelle's new movie Everything Everywhere All at Once and Soefara is all about featuring strong, empowered women in her artwork. 

Thing is Soefara takes her time illustrating, so much so that I've given her the  nickname Slowfara.
I started drafting the story bearing in mind that there were some limitations. There could not be any illustrations where she was wearing costumes from her movies. The only way to proceed was to tell Michelle's story up until the time she broke into movies and summarize the rest of her achievements.




A family friend had a friend who worked with Michelle with speaking engagements.  She offered to broach him with regards to any assitance in getting the book to Michelle. He curtly responded that "if" I were related why didn't I contact Michelle personally myself. Then he proceded to be exremely discouraging by telling her all the obstacles that would be in the way and that the studios might put a kibosh on the book. He was so critical that he even convinced the family friend what a long shot this book would be.



I almost called it quits right then and there but my mum and Soefara encouraged me to carry on. I mean the first draft of the manuscript had been completed and I should just carry it out through to its completion.
I handed Soefara a preliminary draft  in November 2022.   And as Michelle's performance in EEAAO kept gaining accolades, I kept redrafting it. Then she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a musical or comedy. What if she went all the way? What if she actually got nominated and won the best actress at the Oscars? The benefit of having an illustrator who takes her time is that you can edit your manuscript without worrying about massive changes to the illustrations. 
So when Michelle actually became the first SE Asian to win the Oscar we were off to the races...at Soefara's leisurely pace. I asked one of my publishers if they would be interested in publishing the story, but she didn't get back to me. As time was of the essence, I decided to self-publish the book under my own publishing house: Bonnie Books.

There were numerous hiccups a long the way to publication and but what book hasn't had it's fair share of turbulence during production?
The book was finally hot off the press in July 2023. 




PT 2 coming soon...