A.J. Low (the husband-and-wife writing team of Adan Jimenez and Felicia Low-Jimenez) are the authors of the children's books Sherlock Sam and the Missing Heirloom in Katong and Sherlock Sam and the Ghostly Moans in Fort Canning, the first two books in a series now published in the United States. The authors are based in Singapore.
Q: How did you come up with the idea for Sherlock Sam, and
did you know from the beginning that it would be a series?
A: The idea for a chubby boy detective series set in
Singapore actually came from our Singaporean publisher, Epigram Books. They
held a sort of open call for writers to pitch ideas on this kind of series, and
we jumped at the chance.
When they ultimately chose us to write the books, we ended
up infusing the Sherlock character with a lot of our own characteristics: he
loves comics, he loves maths and science, and he loves to eat.
Then we created a bunch of other characters to round out the
Supper Club because, unlike the original Sherlock, we wanted our Sherlock to
have a "Scooby Gang" to work with.
Q: Are you both Sherlock Holmes fans, and do you have a
favorite Holmes adventure?
A: Yes, we both love Sherlock Holmes, and read many of the
stories as kids and we continue to follow his adventures as adults as well (we
love both the BBC series as well as the American series with Lucy Liu).
Adan's favorite adventure is "The Adventure of the
Greek Interpreter", which introduces Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's brother.
Felicia doesn't have a favorite story, but she loves the language of the original
series (she's a big fan of anything Victorian) and is also a huge fan of the
Laurie R. King series featuring Mary Russell.
Q: Many of the events in the books take place in specific
locations in Singapore. What do you think readers both in and outside of
Singapore will learn?
A: That there's lots of cool stuff in Singapore! We do a lot
of research before we start writing about a specific neighborhood, and we're
always discovering new and awesome things in those neighborhoods.
Singapore is a very small country, and many people (even
those of us who live here) might think we've seen it all and that there's
nothing new to discover because of our size.
But it turns out that's not true. Even people who have lived
in Singapore their entire lives can discover cool new things about it, and they
often make it into our books.
Also, as Singapore is a multi-racial, very diverse country,
we have some of the best food in the world and all Singaporeans take food very
seriously (which is why Sherlock Sam does as well). We feel anyone who spends
time in Singapore should spend 2-3 days in this country doing nothing but
eating.
However, even though our stories are set in Singapore, they
are still basically the story of a very curious boy and his friends going on
adventures, getting in trouble, and having fun.
We believe that these are stories that are universal and
children, regardless of where in the world they live, will be able to identify
with. We hope so anyway!
Q: How do the two of you collaborate as you write, and how
closely do you work with illustrator Andrew Tan?
A: We have to plan the books very closely as there are two
of us writing, and we can't just start writing willy nilly. That way lies
madness and confusion.
So we work together to plan out the story and organize it in
chapter breakdowns, so we both know what's going to happen in each chapter
(including important clues and jokes).
Once we're both good on the outline, we'll tag team on the
actual writing. Felicia usually starts first, then Adan tags in, then back to
Felicia, then back to Adan, so on and so forth until the book is done.
We used to tag after every chapter, but we realized that
tends to break our "writing flow," so now we write 2-3 chapters at a
time before tagging out.
We work with Andrew (aka drewscape) quite closely, as well.
We meet up before he starts any art to discuss what exactly we want him to
draw. He reads the books before our meetings, so he has ideas on what to draw
as well.
He'll start sketching during the meeting, to make sure we're
all happy with the basic composition and positioning, then sends us updates as
he gets further along in his process. He's a fantastic artist and we're super
lucky to have him aboard.
He's a also a geek and a comic fan and that allows him to
add nerdy stuff into his illustrations (which we love) without us prompting him
either. We love that!
Q: What’s next for Sherlock Sam?
A: He's growing taller for sure. Haha.
AMP will be publishing the third book (Sherlock Sam and the Sinister Letters in Bras Basah) in the series for the North
American market in February 2017, and the 11th book in the series, titled Sherlock
Sam and the Quantum Pair in Queenstown will be out in Singapore next month (barring any horrible happenings).
We have plans for the next three books in the series (a
collection of short stories that should be out in February 2017 in Singapore
and then books 12 and 13), and are looking to go beyond that too.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: We'll be in the U.S. (primarily the West Coast) in
October 2016 visiting schools and bookstores! The exact dates and times aren't
fixed yet but we'll definitely post them up on our social media pages:
Follow us on Twitter @SGSherlock and Instagram at aj_low_writers
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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