Emerging Writers Series: Emma Pei Yin
“Writing for me is more of an act of listening to the gaps in stories from my family’s past. I don’t write from mastery because I believe every writer can always be better, but I write from curiosity. I often start with a question, which in the case of When Sleeping Women Wake, was: what is my grandmother not saying/ sharing about the occupation? About her family’s experiences? I try to write from the edge of what I learn and understand, not the centre.”
If Emma Pei Yin’s name looks familiar, it’s probably because you’ve seen it against some of her fantastic reviews for Aniko Press!
The whole Aniko Press team is thrilled to congratulate Emma on the release of her debut historical fiction novel, Where Sleeping Women Wake (Hatchette, 2025), which is already an incredible success.
I’ve loved seeing Emma’s book tour highlights on her Instagram (alongside snaps of her ridiculously cute dachshund, Lady) and was delighted to have the chance to catch up with her about this deeply personal work, her journey to publication, tips for navigating the machinery of book PR and more.
I'd love to start by learning a little about you! Can you tell me more about yourself and your writing journey?
Absolutely! I’m an Australian-Chinese writer born in the UK, raised in Hong Kong, and currently living in Ngunnawal Country (Canberra). My relationship with place, culture, and language has always been liminal. I’ve often felt that I write from the margins, the in-betweens, and my stories are rooted in silence: in the things my ancestors did not say, in pages history forgot, in the quiet fortitude of women who survived but were never formally acknowledged or remembered.
Writing began early for me. My mum had gifted me a Disney Mulan diary when I was in primary school. I can still feel the smoothness of its plastic covering and miniature lock. I wrote in it obsessively. Song lyrics, poems or overheard conversations between family members. It wasn’t literary, but it was meaningful.
It took me longer to call myself a writer. I flirted with the idea of it in my twenties when I started writing my YA manuscript, Chasing Echoes in the Rain, but it wasn’t until my thirtieth birthday, surrounded by friends and laughter, that I suddenly felt a quiet urgency settle in me. It was now or never. And so I returned to university to study creative writing and from there, began to treat writing not as an indulgence but as a vocation. It became something sacred, something political. It was my way of integrating my ancestral roots and past into new inheritances.
Congrats on the release of When Sleeping Women Wake! Can you share the journey from the first draft to publication? Did you experience any challenges or unexpected experiences along the way?
Thank you so much! Honestly, it still feels surreal to hold the finished book in my hands. I find myself giggling like a five-year-old if I hold it for too long. When Sleeping Women Wake began not as a plot or outline but as family stories. A nagging question of: What happened to the women in my family during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong? I had heard my grandfather’s stories – filled with strength and sorrow – but the women’s experiences were absent (as they often are in historical narratives), and so I wanted to write towards that silence.
The early drafts were rather fragmented when I think back to it. I wrote scenes that came to mind, scribbled images that popped into my head while researching: salted fish hanging from wooden rods from the ceiling, the way Chinese women walked whilst wearing a cheongsam. I tried to stitch together history and emotion with whatever threads I had, and the first draft just became a chaotic mess. It was more emotion than form, that’s for sure. The earlier drafts were overpacked, and I was always terrified of forgetting something important or leaving someone out.
But the real challenge came later with learning to pare back and write with emotional clarity without falling into cliches. I made a deliberate decision not to depict sexual violence in explicit terms—not because I wanted to shield readers from history, but because I deeply believe in trusting my readers’ intelligence. The horror is real, but it doesn’t need to be re-performed for it to be understood.
Throughout everything, I was guided by the principle of emotional truth. I didn’t lock onto the facts of what happened but rather focused on what it might’ve felt like to have lived through such atrocities. That became my compass when rewriting and editing the manuscript.
When Sleeping Women Wake captures the sweeping devastation of war through the intimate experiences of three women. What first drew you to this particular historical moment, and why did you choose to tell it through the lens of Mingzhu, Qiang, and Biyu?
The Japanese occupation of Hong Kong from 1941 to 1945 is a period often told through military or political frames, but I was drawn to its domestic underside. I wanted to know more about the war fought in the back rooms of businesses, in stolen glances and unspoken alliances.
My own family lived through those years, and because my grandmother never spoke of the occupation, it made me hold onto the absence of those words even more. That’s when Mingzhu, Qiang and Biyu emerged as composite figures. They’re part fiction, part ancestral echo. Mingzhu is the daughter of privilege but with limited power. Qiang, her fiercely intelligent daughter, is caught between loyalty and coming of age while Biyu, their maid, sees more than anyone thinks. Each woman carries her own burden of silence, and through them, I wanted to explore how gender and class shape their experiences of war.
Mingzhu was born from the question of: What would it be like to have a mother who loved and cared so deeply that she would always put you before herself? This is a question I have struggled with for many years, and I know many daughters out there share the same sentiment. I knew I wanted Qiang to experience a mother-daughter love that I never had, and in doing so, I had to really think about what kind of mother I would’ve wanted in real life. Mingzhu was a difficult character to write.
Biyu, on the other hand, was much easier. She is an amalgamation of my grandmother and my aunt. I took all their kindness, generosity and love and poured it into Biyu’s character, and I love how she’s come out as one of the most loved characters by readers. It means I’ve done a good job!
Female relationships are deeply explored in the novel. What did you want to say about power, dependency, and solidarity among women during times of crisis?
I wanted to render the complexities of female relationships without simplifying them into binaries. Women are not always soft, nor are they always saviours. We can harm each other, betray one another and misunderstand one another – especially in systems that pit us against one another. But in times of crisis, something elemental is revealed: the instinct to protect, to witness and to hold space.
Mingzhu, Qiang and Biyu begin the story in roles shaped by Confucian hierarchy: wife, daughter, maid. But war doesn’t honour those roles. In displacement and deprivation, those identities crack. What emerges is something rawer and more truthful. Their dependencies shift and their loyalties are tested. But the key factor of the entire novel is how these three women will do anything to find their way to one another again.
I’ve loved seeing all the launches and celebrations around the book's release, but I know that many authors find managing the marketing/PR side of a book launch quite daunting. Can you tell us more about your experience and how your professional experience in this space has helped you navigate this? Do you have any tips for others?
It’s been a whirlwind for sure! I do have a background in public relations and marketing, which certainly helped, and I was able to understand the machinery behind book publicity quite quickly.
Promoting your own work can feel quite vulnerable because you want to celebrate it, but also protect it. I’m very lucky to have an amazing publicist at Hachette, Emily Lighezzolo, who does most of the heavy lifting, and I am forever grateful for her.
I think it’s good to know your elevator pitch, but it’s more important to know why you wrote something. What truth are you offering? Let that guide your engagements. Also, treat your publicity team as collaborators, not gatekeepers. Be honest about your limits and your values. And schedule rest. That’s non-negotiable. Because even as I write this, after my three-city tour, I’m writing it sick with the flu because I didn’t look after myself properly.
I often like to ask writers about the creative process or any creative philosophies they might adopt when creating new work. Do you have any thoughts or ideas you’d be happy to share with us?
Ah, I’m so bad at giving advice, but I will try!
Writing for me is more of an act of listening to the gaps in stories from my family’s past. I don’t write from mastery because I believe every writer can always be better, but I write from curiosity. I often start with a question, which in the case of When Sleeping Women Wake, was: what is my grandmother not saying/ sharing about the occupation? About her family’s experiences? I try to write from the edge of what I learn and understand, not the centre.
And lastly, what’s next for you? Are you working on anything new at the moment?
I am! I’m currently in the research phase for book two, and I can’t say much other than it’ll be set between China, Singapore, and the UK. It touches on a slice of history that has been forgotten, but declassified documents recently surfaced from a particular government body that I came across and was immediately hooked on.
As for events, I’ll be speaking at the Canberra Writers Festival and will also be announcing my Asia tour for November very soon.
Emma Pei Yin is an Australian-Hong Kong Chinese writer and editor. Her work has been featured in publications such as Harper’s Bazaar, The Canberra Times, The Weekend Australian, Mekong Review and Being Asian Australian.
In 2023, BookPeople and Penguin Random House Australia nominated her as Bookseller of the Year. She is the author of When Sleeping Women Wake, a historical fiction novel set during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong that has been sold into multiple territories around the world.
She lives and works on Ngunnawal Country with her partner and extremely barky dachshund, Lady. Emma is currently working on her next novel.
Instagram: @emmapeiyin
Tiktok: emmapeiyin.author
Website: emmapeiyin.com
Elaine Chennatt is a writer, educator and psychology student currently residing in nipaluna. She has a special interest in bibliotherapy (how we use literature to make sense of our lives) and is endlessly curious about the creative philosophies of others. She lives with her husband and two bossy dachshunds on the not-so-sunny side of the river (IYKYK). Find her online at wordswithelaine.com.
