Kyla Zhao signs 6-digit book agreement
As a mere 24-year-old, Singaporean Kyla Zhao is getting her first novel published by Berkley Publishing, a Penguin Random House imprint, the first of two books both bought for six characters each after an international bidding war.
“I never thought I would be a novelist. However, I have previously written lots of non-fiction — especially journalism. I have bylines in the Singapore editions of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Tatler and The Straits Times, and was also a communications intern in organizations such as the Singapore Urban Redevelopment Authority and Tencent America, ”explains Zhao.
“However, I never thought I was creative enough to write fiction, far fewer hundreds of pages of it! So I always kept on reporting on the world I already knew instead of going on the hassle of creating one. ”
Fortunately for avid readers, the arrival of the pandemic created an opportunity for Ms. Zhao to finally take a stab at writing fiction.
“The pandemic hit, and I was in internship, studying alone in California and interacting with others pretty much just over Zoom. It was a very lonely time, so I tried to cling to the comfort I could, and it usually comes from books to me, ”says Zhao.
“But the genres I love to read are dominated by white writers and books with white protagonists, and it just made me feel even more isolated, especially when there was a lot of anti-Asian racism all over the world, and maybe especially in The United States. At the same time, I was far away from my family in Singapore, having no idea when it was the next time I would see them due to travel restrictions.
“All of this meant that I really wanted to immerse myself in a world of settings I could recognize and characters I could identify with, and since I could not find them in the books I had access to, I decided to write my own. All the negativity in the world then drove me to create a story that was as fun and glamorous as possible – like a beach holiday I could escape into. ”
Zhao’s first novel, entitled The Fraud Squad, is described by Publishers Marketplace as a cross between The Devil Wears Prada and Crazy Rich Asians: “… a woman who dreams of having her own byline in a high-society magazine gets help from friends to infiltrate the Singapore socialite scene, but finds belonging to the elite set may mean she loses herself in the process. ”
The recent success of the film Crazy Rich Asians highlighted the global longing for more diverse representation. While Zhao focused on the world, people, and culture that she longed for, she developed a focus on Asian protagonists and connections to something more.
It was my way of relieving my homesickness while living 9000 miles from home during the pandemic, but I also believe that Asian representation in the media is something the world could do with much more of.
“When I was younger, I was rarely exposed to books centered on people of color, so I had a hard time imagining that someone like me could have ‘the main character’s energy’ (to borrow a TikTok phrase) . I think it’s so important for kids to grow up with media characters they can relate to and identify with. “
“Even though there is more Asian representation in books now, there are still many people who are collapsing the entire Asian diaspora into a monolith and judging a very diverse group by one brand. Although my book consists of an entirely Asian cast, there are significant differences in their experiences, desires, motives, and fears. “
“I really want to highlight what incredibly diverse and colorful lives people of color can lead and show that one’s ethnicity should not immerse them into particular stories or tropics that Caucasian readers expect.”
Ms. Zhao has also used her previous experience in Singapore’s high fashion magazine world to great effect.
“It’s so much fun, because I was only 16 when I was first featured in a fashion magazine: I wrote about weddings for Harper’s Bazaar Singapore, and that was before I even got my first kiss and definitely not close to being married! “laughs Mrs. Zhao.
“I think that my experiences with magazine publishers and public relations worlds have shaped certain frameworks in my book and inspired some of the characters’ backgrounds. My understanding of high-fashion and high-society events also helped me with all the fun descriptions of what the characters wore and how they socialized with each other! ”
While Zhao has obviously been writing professionally from a very young age, she says that at first she was pretty shy about showing someone her first work of fiction.
“When I first wrote it, I never intended to show it to anyone but myself and maybe a few close friends. It was fantastic, because there were no expectations from others that I should make it something big, so I could write as messy as I wanted and experiment freely, ”she explains.
“But friends encouraged me to try to get it published after reading it. But because I did not think of releasing my story to the public, I did not adhere to any strict standards while drafting it. I never bothered to come up with an outline or plan, so the first draft was (sic) very chaotic, to say the least. “
“I hit a complete draft within two months, but editing took much longer because there were so many plot holes I had to fix and so many cracks to fix. It also didn’t help that I had already started my final year of college when I started editing my book, so it definitely slowed me down. ”
Still, Ms. Zhao is thrilled to be a published novelist, despite the trials and tribulations of the publication.
“Being a novelist has also given me a far greater appreciation of how much work goes into producing a book, and I am truly awe-inspiring for the tremendous creativity and passion my co-authors have,” Ms. Zhao says.
The scam group will be published worldwide in January 2023, but there is also another novel to plan: “I have no idea what my second book will be yet — it could be a sequel or spin-off of The Fraud Squad, or approx. something completely independent. But I certainly hope to still write about settings and contexts I identify with. ”
To keep up to date with the launch of The scam group, you can follow Kayla Zhao on Twitter @kylazingaround, Instagram @kylajzhao and LinkedInor on her website www.kylazhao.com.
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