Michelle Law is a writer with experience in journalism, screenwriting and playwriting.
She wrote the highly acclaimed play Single Asian Female – commissioned by La Boite – which earned a 5-star Guardian review before transferring to a sold-out season at Belvoir St Theatre in 2018. The show has since returned to La Boite with Michelle in the lead role and toured to Melbourne. Her next play, Top Coat, is commissioned by Sydney Theatre Company and will premiere in 2022 at Wharf 1 Theatre.
Michelle co-created, co-wrote and starred in the series Homecoming Queens, the first web series commissioned by SBS On-Demand. It won Best Screenplay at Melbourne WebFest in 2018 as well as an AWGIE Award. It also won Best Performance in a Comedy Series at the Equity Ensemble Awards in 2019.
In 2018 she was a writer on television series Rosehaven S3 (Guesswork TV and ABC TV), as well as Get Krack!n (Katering Productions, Guesswork TV and the ABC), which won an AWGIE for Best Comedy, and The Bureau of Magical Things (Jonathan M. Shiff Productions and Network Ten), which won an AACTA for Best Children’s Program.
Other television includes the multiplatform content for Flashforward (ABC); and story and interactive media for Slide (FOX8), for which she won an AWGIE. Michelle is currently writing on Safe Home, a series that tells the story of a young woman working at a not-for-profit legal centre helping women escape domestic abuse, whose life gets turned upside down when she witnesses a murder on a suburban street. The series is created by Anna Barnes, produced by Imogen Banks/Kindling Pictures for SBS.
Her poignant short documentary, Suicide and Me (which screened on ABC2), centres around three young suicide survivors who confront the stigma surrounding the subject matter and ultimately inspire hope. She has presented a TEDx talk and is a prolific speaker about issues concerning female and cultural identity, as well as youth issues.
Beyond writing for television and film, Michelle is also a successfully published author. Most recently, Michelle wrote Asian Girls Are Going Places, published by Hardie Grant Publishing. Michelle contributed to the anthology After Australia, with her short story Bu Liao Qing published through Affirm Press. Sh*t Asian Mothers Say, a comedy book co-written with her brother Benjamin Law, was published in 2014. She has also contributed to the collections Destroying the Joint, Women of Letters, Best Australian Comedy Writing, and Growing Up Asian In Australia. In 2016, Michelle won the Queensland Premier’s Young Publishers and Writers Award.
She is currently working on several theatre commissions, as well as feature and television projects.
For a full CV please contact info@rgm.com.au.
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Books & Plays
Your Asian Mother Says: “You look just like Mummy when she was your age.”
Your Asian Mother Means: “You will secure love and happiness thanks to my genes so essentially you owe me everything.”
Benjamin Law and Michelle Law, the long-suffering children of an Asian Mother, bring you the hilarious Sh*t Asian Mothers Say, featuring the wisdom of Asian Mothers the world over, from “Eat every grain of rice, otherwise that’s how many pimples your future spouse will have” to “She’s just jealous – and racist”. The book also includes quizzes (“Have You Failed Your Asian Mother?”), an interpretation guide to “What your Asian Mother is really saying”, Ten Asian Mother Commandments (Thou shalt not sleepover) and an Asian Mothers’ Guide to Beauty (bad perms, colour, eyelids). With illustrations by Oslo Davis that bring the disapproving Asian Mother to life, this is the perfect gift for the Asian Mother in your life – or perhaps her children.
Published by Nero, available for purchase through Publisher
The Golden Phoenix, a restaurant on the Sunshine Coast. The last customers have left for the night, and Pearl can unwind. She’s the quintessential matriarch – balancing family, business, and her love of karaoke. Enter her daughters: Zoe, in the throes of online dating, making big life decisions. And Mei, a teenager, grappling with her identity in modern Australia. Of course they see the world differently to their mother. Pearl is the classic (hilarious) onslaught of embarrassing observations, constantly questioning her Westernised children. Tonight she reveals a secret that threatens to tear their family apart.
To purchase Single Asian Female, click here
The second in the Girls Guide to the World series, Asian Girls are Going Places is a gift book with a difference: it features practical advice (and more) from author Michelle Law and her interviewees that specifically targets the joys, fears and obligations unique to Asian women travelling the world.
Separated into chapters that deal with solo travel, family travel, the best places to celebrate Lunar New Year, where to find good Asian food around the globe, romance or relationships, safety and privilege, the sage and entertaining advice is all told through Michelle’s signature offbeat, comedic style, and accompanied by eye-popping illustrations and design. It’s a book that’s at once cool and collected, yet not afraid to take on the weird, funny and, at times, gross aspects of travel. But you don’t need to have any concrete travel plans to get a lot out of this book.
Each chapter includes anecdotes from Michelle, interviews with other experienced Asian female travellers, handy lists, stunning illustrations by Hong Kong artist Joey Leung Kay-yin, and comes with a page of beautiful stickers, making it either an impressive gift to be treasured at home or a luxurious ‘treat yourself’ item that can be read on the go. Asian Girls are Going Places is a handy, laugh-out-loud and deeply relatable travel companion for Asian women that will be at the top of their packing list.
Lily’s grandmother was a beauty queen back in Hong Kong. She doesn’t care that times have changed and that Lily lives in a new country and a new century. She sees that Lily’s caught between worlds, and wants her to enter the Chinese community beauty pageant, the highly competitive Miss Peony. She won’t take no for an answer.
And to makes matters worse, she’s a ghost.
