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.