The Lowdown with... Cassandra Khaw

Cassandra Khaw is the business developer for Singaporean video games publisher Ysbryd Games. She also writes for Ars Technica UK whenever possible. When not doing either of those things, she practices muay thai, tries to find time to dance, and reads voraciously. She also writes a variety of fiction, and has a novella entitled RUPERT WONG, CANNIBAL CHEF out with Abaddon Books, and another, HAMMERS ON BONE, from Tor.








1. Tell us three things about yourself. 

I don’t go anywhere without a plush bunny named Judy. (Yes, named for the Zootopia character.) There’s an unhappy story tied to that, but that is not here or now.

I practice Muay Thai. Not very often and certainly not at the expertise level that I’d like. But I enjoy the martial arts and the excuse at working out incessantly.

My favourite thing to do in the United Kingdom is gallivanting about, telling people nice things about their attire, and otherwise terrorising the Brits with undue flattery. Some day, this is going to get me arrested.

2. What was the first thing you had published? 
‘What the Highway Prefers’ which Lackington’s published. I have the acceptance letter printed somewhere.

3. Which piece of writing are you proudest of? 
Oh. Oh, my god. Like I said in another interview, it always feels like I’m playing favorites when someone makes me pick. (Because it literally is, but let’s ignore that.) If I had to choose, it’d probably be ‘In The Rustle of Pages’ that came out in 2015. It was my first story to have a strong emotional impact on readers.

4. …and which makes you cringe? 
We do not speak ill of the dead and buried.

5. What’s a normal writing day like? 
Roll out of bed, shamble towards the nearest available source of coffee, eat breakfast, drink coffee, prod at Twitter. At some point after morning ablutions, open up a document and haphazardly smack at the keyboard until words fall out. Writing might be a more elegant affair for everyone else, but for me, it isn’t. Then again, I’ve never feigned being an elegant human being. So there’s that.


6. Which piece of writing should someone who’s never read you before pick up first? 
I want to say Rupert Wong just because he was the first thing I really wrote, the first thing to give me confidence I could do something with my fiction. But Rupert is also a Character, if you know what I mean, and of all my works, his stories are possibly the goriest of them all. Still. Demon babies seeking to unionise.

7. What are you working on now? 
Right at this very second? I’m switching between this and typing out a manuscript for a tie-in novella. The boys at Signal from Tolva gave me licenses to go crazy with their world, and I’m not ashamed to say I have. Expect queer women cyborgs of every variety, 3D-printed scientists, parasite complexes, and plenty of body horror.