The Writer’s Gauntlet with Sadie Kaye is a regular column at The Hooghly Review. This article is being reprinted with The Review’s permission.
SK: If a detective looked at your browser tabs right now, would they arrest you, call an exorcist, or buy you a weighted blanket?
EPY: Ha. I think they’d initially arrest me, then realise I’m researching British immigration policy and wartime obstetrics, and then quietly buy themselves the weighted blanket.
Would you rather your protagonists sue you for emotional distress and gross negligence or be sentenced to life in a Happy Ending colony?
They’re already building the case against me.
What font do you write in and why is it superior to everyone else’s?
Garamond. It’s pretty and makes an unfinished draft look like a published book.
Would you rather delete your favourite 5,000-word chapter or replace every instance of ‘said’ with ‘ejaculated’?
Delete. Delete. Delete. No piece of writing, however beloved, deserves that much ejaculation, Sadie. There isn’t enough Garamond in the world to help with that.
If you could magically delete one trope from existence, which one are you throwing under the bus with zero regrets?
Knight in shining armour. He’s not a knight – he’s a grifter with a saviour complex in an elastane shirt. Chivalry score: Error 404.
Do your protagonists guide you toward the light, or sit on your shoulder whispering, ‘Kill the mentor, kill the mentor’?
My characters are very independent. They conceal crucial information from me and then make one catastrophic decision that forces me to rewrite the previous six chapters. They’re great, really.
Dog crush: Lady
If your WIP characters were ghosts, would they help you find your keys or rearrange your furniture to match the mess in your head?
My characters don’t have unfinished business. They all crossed the Naihe Bridge and were reincarnated.
Plotter or Pantser?
Plotter turned panster turned possessed by the characters.
What’s your writing ritual and why is it a cursed superstition?
Coffee & Snacks and an entire wall covered in historical documents and photographs. Cherry on top is a good playlist on Spotify of all depressing C-drama OSTs.
What non-existent job do you wish existed?
Ohh. I think it would be cool to be some kind of historical…atmosphere consultant? You know, I can (using advanced technology, of course) enter an author’s manuscript and inspect a scene and say things like, “This room is well-lit for 1843.”
Would you rather find a typo in the first sentence of your freshly published novel or the last?
Forget a typo. I had a jet in my first novel and they didn’t exist then.
What’s the last thing you researched that has probably put you on a government watchlist?
How to conceal a body in the garden.
Proud Day for Lady
Drafting fuel: coffee, tea, liquor, Haribo or the tears of your antagonists?
Coffee and Shiraz while drafting then tears of patriarchal institutions during revisions.
Are you a ruthless assassin or a sentimental hoarder on a kill your darlings scale?
I’m a sentimental hoarder who eventually hires an assassin. The assassin is usually my editor.
Stinky Books: old library vanilla or fresh-off-the-press chemicals?
Oooh. Old-library vanilla all the way.
One word you’ve banned from your vocab because you’ve overused it?
‘Looked’ – omg. My characters have officially lost the right to use their eyes.
Your author’s bio as a clickbait headline?
Archivists Hate Her! Government Watchlists Love Her! Knights Fear Her! (No wonder Emma Pei Yin’s characters don’t know where to look…)
How do you write: sitting like a human or perched like a gargoyle?
I begin as a human and gradually fold into a question mark.
Describe your latest WIP using three emojis and no context.
If you had to turn into an animal for an hour every day, are you a Majestic Hawk (great view, very cold) or a Fat Housecat (great nap, very judged)?
Cat for sure. I already possess the required combination of judgement, sleepiness and unreasonable expectations of people.
Would you prefer a 1-star review that says ‘This changed my life for the worse’ or a 3-star review that says ‘It was fine’?
I don’t mind. The worst ones are 3-star reviews that say “BEST THING I’VE EVER READ.” What do you reserve the fourth star for? The book giving you a full body massage while feeding you grapes?
EMMA PEI YIN – YOU HAVE PASSED THE WRITERS GAUNTLET!
THANK YOU FOR YOUR WIT AND WRITERLY WISDOM!
Think you’ve got what it takes to ride The Writer’s Gauntlet? Email or (preferably) DM Sadie on IG @KayeSadie @TheHooghlyReview
Writer’s Bio
Emma Pei Yin is a historical fiction author, literary publicist, dachshund mum and professional rummager through inconvenient histories. Her debut novel, When Sleeping Women Wake followed three women in Japanese-occupied Hong Kong and explores war, resistance and the dangerous things women do to remain human. The book won the 2026 Indie Book Award for Debut Fiction and was shortlisted for the ACT Literary Award for Fiction.
It was also longlisted for the 2026 ARA Historical Novel Prize. Her next novel, coming out June 2027, turns to the Chinese seamen who served Britain during the Second World War. She’s an ambassador for Chapters for Change, a 2026 charitable initiative run by the Human and Hope Foundation improving literacy in Cambodia.
Emma’s award-winning debut historical fiction novel
When Sleeping Women Wake: Emma Pei Yin. Ballantine Books 2025, ISBN-10: 0593975561 ISBN-13 : 978-0593975565
Insta: @emmapeiyin
https://au.linkedin.com/in/emmapeiyin
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/51852652.Emma_Pei_Yin
Sadie Kaye is a writer & performer from Sai Kung, Hong Kong. Her humour, fiction, rants & reviews have appeared in the South China Morning Post, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, The Hooghly Review, Buzz & many anthologies. Her humour column for RTHK Radio 3, Sharp Pains, received nominations for Best Comedy from the New York Festivals Radio Awards and Moment of Comedy Gold from the International Women’s Podcast Awards in 2022 & 2023. She won the Comedy Women in Print Prize for Flash Fiction in 2024. She’s a producer for Contro Vento Films. Her most recent film, To Love A Narcissist, was released in North America on 19 May 2026 and will soon be available worldwide.
She can be found at https://sadiekaye.tv
Her life motto is you’re only young once, but you can be immature forever.
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