Author Cai Tse is living the dream. She has found a way to combine her two biggest loves—Chinese lion dancing and art—into a career, which now includes competing globally on a lion dancing team and publishing her debut graphic novel, Lion Dancers (Simon & Schuster).
“It all actually did start from lion dancing; it’s been a lifelong passion of mine,” Tse says of her path to writing and illustrating a children’s story. She remembers being mesmerized by the lion dancers that appeared at her family’s local temple in Sydney, Australia, during a Chinese New Year celebration when she was about 10 and how she wanted to learn as much as she could about the art.
But her quest proved tricky. “We didn’t have social media then, and it was really difficult to find any information at all because lion dancing is so cultural and so steeped in tradition,” she says. “I didn’t have any family or friends involved in it. And I knew even then that when I became older, I wanted to be a source of information about lion dancing for younger people who really wanted to know more about it but didn’t know where to look.”
In the meantime, she gravitated toward art and drawing. “I grew up reading Japanese manga and I have always wanted to produce a comic because of that,” Tse says. She developed her own style without formal art training and segued into various jobs including working as a 3D visualizer at an architecture firm, a background artist in animation, and most recently, a concept artist in video games. Her work has appeared in such animated TV series as Marvel’s What If...? and Nickelodeon’s Glitch Techs. Additionally, with support via Patreon, Tse formed her own art company, the Seventh Lion, where she sells her art prints and merchandise inspired by lion dancing.
In 2015, Tse joined the Chinese Youth League Lion Dance Team in Sydney and immersed herself in intense training, performing as the tail of a lion. Her crew won the international lion dancing championship for Australia in 2018. And all along the way, she wanted to chronicle her experience and convey it through the comics and art world. “I kind of combined the skills I taught myself and my passion for lion dancing to be the source of information I wish I had as a kid,” Tse says.
She just wasn’t sure that anyone would want to publish it. But then something she saw on Twitter convinced her to start looking for an agent. She had been following agent Britt Siess on the platform, and when she felt ready, she pitched the book to her in early 2021. “Luckily she was interested,” Tse says.
The pair sharpened the project to present to editors, and Celia Lee, executive editor at S&S Books for Young Readers, bought world rights to Lion Dancers in February 2022. The middle grade graphic novel follows two former lion dance partners and best friends as they find themselves competing individually for the top spot on a new team.
Working with Lee on the book was a revelation for Tse. “Celia taught me that you can convey the same information in a much more condensed way, communicating a lot more effectively and more specifically,” she says. “Her changes made the story better in ways that I could never see.”
Since Lion Dancers’ publication in August, Tse has been especially heartened by the response from fellow lion dancers. “Some teams have bought the book for their members and they’ve tagged me in Instagram posts about it,” she says. “It’s a really nice feeling when other lion dancers can read the book. For me, being able to give back to that community is the best part.”
Tse is working on other stories, though nothing is yet under contract. “Most of them, I admit, are about lion dancing,” she says with a laugh. “But not all of them.”
On a typical day she juggles her art jobs with taking her dog for multiple walks, and lion dance practice, especially around the all-important Lunar New Year season. She’ll soon be ramping up to dance in the year of the Wood Snake, which arrives Jan. 29, 2025.
