Author: Rachel Tey

Rachel Tey is the author of the middle-grade fantasy adventure series, Tea in Pajamas and Tea in Pajamas: Beyond Belzerac, and most recently contributed an original short story, "The Midnight Mission", to the anthology A View of the Stars: Stories of Love (Felix Cheong and Anitha Pillai, eds). She is also a resident writer and creative writing workshop instructor under Sing Lit Station’s “Book A Writer” programme. Since she was awarded the National Arts Council grant in 2015, Rachel has been featured in The Sunday Times, has spoken at the Singapore Writers Festival, and her books have been presented at the London and Frankfurt Bookfairs. Outside of writing and conducting talks and workshops for schools, she works as a content and communications specialist. Rachel lives in Singapore with her husband, who illustrated her books, and two children.

Merry Christmas, time for a change?

Posted on by Rachel Tey

Do you desire but fear change? Here’s a recent commentary I wrote about my experience. Click either image below to read.

Merry Christmas and Happy 2023!

This article was first published in The Straits Times on 25 December 2022.

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The boat that draws me to dad

Posted on by Rachel Tey

After the fanfare of Mother’s Day, it is tempting to spare no expense so Dad feels special this Father’s Day. But before we book a fancy dinner or pick out a gift, here is an afterthought: a day in honour of a parent is not a popularity competition between the two. Why not consider the most important part of this equation: fathers themselves?

This article was first published in The Straits Times. Click on either image below to read.

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Keep on keeping on

Posted on by Rachel Tey

What do an empty hospital walkway and a canal in an open field have in common? Nothing, except that I was there on each occasion to take the picture, and at both times mortality was on my mind.

Last Christmas eve, as I traversed the deserted corridors of Tan Tock Seng Hospital, the few sentences cycling through my mind struck me as rather poetic. “In the end, there’s very little that matters a lot,” was one of them. The other: “In order not to die, one must live.”

But several months prior, before my mother was hospitalized for spinal surgery, I had already been thinking about mortality.

While on a morning walk in a field behind where I live, I had stared into the depths of an open canal and tried to calculate the height at which a person could fall in without dying. Though I wasn’t actually contemplating the act, I also knew this sudden fascination with the physics of falling from a height ran deeper than morbid curiosity.

Continue reading “Keep on keeping on” →