Starkie Mak is an artist, illustrator and writer who studied creative writing at the University of Oxford. Mak also studied fine arts and integrated arts at the University of Hong Kong. She moved to Toronto from Hong Kong in 2018.
Fiction (Graphic novel)
Coming to Canada
Winnipeg: At Bay Press, 2021.
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
With sensitivity and tenderness, Starkie Mak has captured a tale of the immigrant experience, from the eyes of a child. Masterfully rendered with careful homage paid to the children’s books that have touched the hearts of so many, Mak’s brush strokes and calligraphy evoke the turbulent emotions and difficulties a child must surely experience when having their little world upended, only to have a much larger and foreign world unfold before them.
In a heartbreaking parting, a child says goodbye to her family and is left with her imagination as guide. In search of a new life in a new land, a child retreats into the realm of fantasy. Through the devastating pain of childhood loss emerges the joy of a child’s triumph.
Non-fiction (Graphic novel)
Remembering Taiyaki
Winnipeg: At Bay Press, 2025.
forthcoming June 2025
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
Following on the heels of her acclaimed graphic novel debut, Coming to Canada (At Bay Press), singular artist and storyteller Starkie Mak returns with an intimate story about family secrets. Her grandfather, fighting in WW2 for imperialist Japan, is captured and taken as a POW in the USA. Unable to return to Japan, he is disgraced by his own government and forgotten by his own family. Until now. Mak tells a story of secrets, love and one man’s longing for the simplest of things, to taste his favourite street treat, Taiyaki.