Writer Cai Tse resides the dream. She has discovered a method to mix her two largest loves—Chinese language lion dancing and artwork—right into a profession, which now consists of competing globally on a lion dancing staff and publishing her debut graphic novel, Lion Dancers (Simon & Schuster).
“All of it really did begin from lion dancing; it’s been a lifelong ardour of mine,” Tse says of her path to writing and illustrating a kids’s story. She remembers being mesmerized by the lion dancers that appeared at her household’s native temple in Sydney, Australia, throughout a Chinese language New Yr celebration when she was about 10 and the way she wished to be taught as a lot as she may in regards to the artwork.
However her quest proved tough. “We didn’t have social media then, and it was actually tough to search out any data in any respect as a result of lion dancing is so cultural and so steeped in custom,” she says. “I didn’t have any household or associates concerned in it. And I knew even then that once I turned older, I wished to be a supply of details about lion dancing for youthful individuals who actually wished to know extra about it however didn’t know the place to look.”
Within the meantime, she gravitated towards artwork and drawing. “I grew up studying Japanese manga and I’ve at all times wished to supply a comic book due to that,” Tse says. She developed her personal model with out formal artwork coaching and segued into varied jobs together with working as a 3D visualizer at an structure agency, a background artist in animation, and most lately, an idea artist in video video games. Her work has appeared in such animated TV collection as Marvel’s What If…? and Nickelodeon’s Glitch Techs. Moreover, with help by way of Patreon, Tse fashioned her personal artwork firm, the Seventh Lion, the place she sells her artwork prints and merchandise impressed by lion dancing.
In 2015, Tse joined the Chinese language Youth League Lion Dance Staff in Sydney and immersed herself in intense coaching, performing because the tail of a lion. Her crew received the worldwide lion dancing championship for Australia in 2018. And all alongside the best way, she wished to chronicle her expertise and convey it by means of the comics and artwork world. “I type of mixed the talents I taught myself and my ardour for lion dancing to be the supply of knowledge I want I had as a child,” Tse says.
She simply wasn’t certain that anybody would wish to publish it. However then one thing she noticed on Twitter satisfied her to begin on the lookout for an agent. She had been following agent Britt Siess on the platform, and when she felt prepared, she pitched the e-book to her in early 2021. “Fortunately she was ,” Tse says.
The pair sharpened the mission to current to editors, and Celia Lee, government editor at S&S Books for Younger Readers, purchased world rights to Lion Dancers in February 2022. The center grade graphic novel follows two former lion dance companions and greatest associates as they discover themselves competing individually for the highest spot on a brand new staff.
Working with Lee on the e-book was a revelation for Tse. “Celia taught me which you could convey the identical data in a way more condensed manner, speaking much more successfully and extra particularly,” she says. “Her adjustments made the story higher in ways in which I may by no means see.”
Since Lion Dancers’ publication in August, Tse has been particularly heartened by the response from fellow lion dancers. “Some groups have purchased the e-book for his or her members and so they’ve tagged me in Instagram posts about it,” she says. “It’s a very nice feeling when different lion dancers can learn the e-book. For me, having the ability to give again to that neighborhood is the perfect half.”
Tse is engaged on different tales, although nothing is but underneath contract. “Most of them, I admit, are about lion dancing,” she says with amusing. “However not all of them.”
On a typical day she juggles her artwork jobs with taking her canine for a number of walks, and lion dance apply, particularly across the all-important Lunar New Yr season. She’ll quickly be ramping as much as dance within the 12 months of the Wooden Snake, which arrives Jan. 29, 2025.
A model of this text appeared within the 12/02/2024 problem of Publishers Weekly underneath the headline: Cai Tse
