By Yeow Kai Chai

The back cover blurb for her latest publication, Snakes of Singapore: A Slightly Unhinged Field Guide (Epigram, 2026), pitches it as "the snake book you never knew you needed—part field guide, part art book, 100% love letter."

The above is apropos as a descriptor for Juliette Yu-Ming Lizeray herself. She is an author you never knew you needed – part dedicated anthropologist, part versatile artist, and 100% scribe with a heart. A writer and comic artist, she lovingly drew and wrote on the country's 65 native snake species with the aim of ameliorating the reputation of these oft-vilified creatures. Marrying personal anecdotes with succinct, well-researched biological data, the book doesn't fit neatly into any marketing category, but instead appeals to all generations who want to learn, and be entertained at the same time.

It is not surprising to find out that she has written across artforms and disciplines. Armed with an MSc in Anthropology and Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science, she co-wrote another intriguing book, Semionauts of Tradition: Music, Culture and Identity in Contemporary Singapore (Springer, 2018). It focuses on emerging millennial musicians and explores paradoxes within current thinking about multiracialism, racial harmony, the East-West divide and tradition versus modernity, and proposes new ways of understanding identity, cultural change and creativity in a highly globalised, and diverse nation.

As a creative fiction writer, she has won the 2025 NüStories Essay Contest and the 2023 Golden Point Award. Her work has appeared in Best New Singaporean Short Stories Vol. 7, NüVoices, Mekong Review, SUSPECT and The Santa Clara Review. COMMUNION, her comic zine about ADHD, was shortlisted for the 2024 Graphic Medicine Award and can be found on her Instagram: @julietteYML.

She also co-founded the Monsoon Awards for Asian comics, which has its inaugural edition in Bangkok in October 2026. The goal is to platform comics creators from Asia and the Asian diasporas, build intra-regional ties as well as celebrate non-English Asian languages. It is conceived as a nomadic prize that will partner with different festivals every year. This year, the Monsoon Awards is collaborating with the Bangkok Comics Art Festival.

She is currently working on a graphic memoir about mixed race identity, diaspora and language, as well as several short stories and essays. 

1. What are you reading right now?
Alejo Carpentier's The Lost Steps. He's a Cuban author. I read his work on music in Cuba a long time ago and enjoyed it. The Lost Steps chronicles the journey of a musicologist who travels from New York to the Venezuelan Amazon in search of rare indigenous musical instruments. He eventually comes to realise the hollowness of his former life and decides to live in the rainforest. A musicologist by training, Carpentier is great at describing sound. His style is baroque and lyrical. I'm not usually drawn to long, dense sentences, but he's a brilliant writer!

2. If you were a famous literary character in a novel, play or poem, what would you be and why?
A mix of Moomintroll and Snufkin, with a dollop of Bilbo Baggins and a sprinkle of Mafalda.

Moomintroll is curious and forms deep emotional attachments. Snufkin is a free spirit and likes the simple things in life. Bilbo is a homebody who embarks on quests now and then. Mafalda is always questioning the adults in the room.

3. What is the greatest misconception about you?
Being mixed-race, multicultural and multilingual, having lived in different countries and absorbed cultural traits that are not necessarily from my inherited cultures, I know my identity can be confusing to people. I don't fit neatly into categories people are taught to think in.

4. Name one living writer and one dead writer you most identify with, and tell us why.
I have felt very seen while reading comics by Lynda Barry. Her work has enchanted me for a long time. As has her generosity—she often platforms her students' art and shares her lesson plans.

I can only think of dead artists at the moment.

Wifredo Lam. I am struck by the symbolic power of his paintings. He was searching for new forms of expression, inspired by his identity. He was Cuban of Chinese, African, Spanish and Taíno heritage and spent time in Europe with the Surrealists and Cubists before returning to his homeland. I'm also between cultures and continue to search for ways to express who I am. And Maya Deren who, like me, was into anthropology, dance and experimental filmmaking. Not a mix I encounter too often!

5. Do you believe in writer's block? If so, how do you overcome it?
Sure!

If I am stuck on a piece, I simply transmogrify into a steam engine with no brakes. My brain gets the message: "High alert! Problem to be fixed! Task to complete!" It will scan for solutions. Test ideas out within the story. I usually lie there in a tortured state of mental hyperfocus as my brain chugs along until it deems the problem is fixed.

Once transmogrification has been set in motion, it takes superhuman effort to change course. Good thing: I generate lots of ideas and eventually come up with something that sticks and can continue with my life. Not so great thing: it's as taxing as a demonic possession.

To be honest, I'm trying to rewire my brain to not do this. A healthier coping mechanism is to go out and explore the world and let things come to you.  

6.  What qualities do you most admire in a writer?
The ability to take complex ideas and distil them into very simple things. Also the ability to connect with readers and induce feeling.

7. What is one trait you most deplore in writing or writers?
I hate manipulative, dopamine-teasing, call-and-response style of writing I see everywhere nowadays.

"These five things are keeping you awake at night. READ MORE." 

"They were inseparable then this shocking thing happened. CLICK HERE."

"Steve Jobs ate these seven things at Taco Bell every day. >>>" 

8. Can you recite your favourite line from a literary work or a piece of advice from a writer?
I used to be part of a graphic memoir group and someone shared a poem and it made me realise two things: a) my story matters, and b) the importance of being vulnerable.

"Why Bother," by Sean Thomas Dougherty
Because right now there is someone
out there with
a wound in the exact shape
of your words.

9. Complete this sentence: Few people know this, but I...
Used to sell batik baby clothes and tried to start an import/export company when I was living in Rio de Janeiro.  

10. At the movies, if you have to pick a comedy, a tragedy or an action thriller to watch, which would you go for?
Depends on my mood.

When I am tired, I want comedy. Action movies with lots of shooting and car chases make my eyes glaze over with boredom and auditory overload. I napped during John Wick.  

11. What is your favourite word, and what is your least favourite one? Love: the hilarious Singlish term "eye power" which captures the Singaporean sense of humour—ironic and attuned to self-consciousness and social awkwardness.

I also love "cafuné" (pronounced ca-foo-NAY). It's a Brazilian Portuguese word that originated in Angola and refers to affectionately running one's fingers over someone's scalp or hair. Cafuné is head-specific. You cannot cafunate any other body part.

I hate the term "influencer."

12. Compose a short-short story in three sentences that includes the following words: Zumba, randy, Jacobson's organ.
Jacobson's organ was broken. Zumba class would have to be accompanied by Randy's randy theramin. Not optimal for anyone in the room after what happened last time.

13. What object is indispensable to you when you write?
A bed or a couch with lots of pillows.

14. What is the best time of the day for writing?
Morning. Sadly, I am a night person.

15. If you have a last supper, which three literary figures, real or fictional, would you invite to the soiree, and why?
Assuming they could magically understand each other's languages, I would invite non-conformists who would be fun to be around:

Brazilian author and poet Hilda Hilst (b. 1930-2004). I love her poetry, her humanism and how daring and ahead of her time she was. Sick of being labelled by publishers as not commercial enough, she wrote four satirically obscene books while in her 60s to criticise the literary world's double standards and bourgeois false morality. She lived in the countryside and threw lots of parties.

French author François Rabelais (b. 1483-1553). He couldn't help himself from writing banned books and getting into trouble with the authorities—at the time, the Catholic Church (he was an ordained priest). A courageous weirdo who invented strange characters, words and languages and had to self-exile after ruffling cassocks.

Chinese poet Li Po (b. 701-762). I feel he'd speak from the heart. His poetry is simple but profound, full of earnest emotion and longing for companionship. He liked to wander in nature and get drunk with friends (according to his poetry). He, too, was deemed subversive by powerful overlords.

16. I love how you have embraced your ADHD as a superpower, experimenting and switching between genres without apology. Can you address some stereotypes surrounding neurodivergent people, and how they can be better supported and motivated in Singapore?
Neurodivergence is very vast. I can't speak for everyone, only my lived experience with ADHD.

Stereotype #1: ADHD is just a few visible symptoms. Fidgeting. Easily distracted. In kids: acting out. But it functions like an operating system. Every facet of life is affected, from social relations, emotions, memory, cognition, habit formation, to sleep, trust, motivation, health, even finances. Most of these aspects are private, only noticeable to us (and often to our spouses/partners). That's why it is irritating when people say you don't seem like you have ADHD. We're often what's termed masking in the presence of others.

#2: I am a great appreciator of funny ADHD memes, but I worry that ADHD social media content may mislead those who don't know anything about it into seeing the condition as a bunch of trivial quirks. Or worse, an identity some claim in order to feel more  interesting. It can be a disservice to those of us who suffer acutely from it.

#3: People saying they have ADHD based on one characteristic. I always recommend people read up more about the condition to see if they have other symptoms. Having one trait does not equal ADHD. General admittance to the club entails suffering from a whole range of symptoms to a degree of severity.

#4: Sometimes, ADHD is framed as a superpower. I don't really view it that way since it's often debilitating. But I get why it might be necessary to do so for some people. Many still view ADHD as something to be ashamed of, especially children who are struggling to follow expectations, school work, etc. Calling it a superpower is a small way to counter the shame and self-blame that is internalised from a young age.

Finally, society should be more accommodating to neurodiversity, if not for us, then for its own good. Neurodivergent people are coal mine canaries. Our sensitivities often make us the first to feel the negative effects of societal conditions and pressures. We experienced burnout before burnout became a thing. We experience overstimulation before others start to register feelings of discomfort. If we could design cities, work life and social practices with neurodivergence in mind, we'd have a gentler society for everyone!

17. What would you write on your own tombstone?
have u seen my phone?

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