Lee Lai is an Australian cartoonist living between Naarm (Melbourne), Australia, and Tio'tia:ke (known as Montreal), Quebec. For the past few years she has been writing comics, painting illustrations, and facilitating mural-painting workshops with teenagers in Canadian schools. Her work has been featured in the New Yorker, The Lifted Brow, Room Magazine, and Everyday Feminism. 

All of Lai's picks will be 15% throughout the month. Here's a sneak peak:

Obits by Tess Liem

Liem’s work is so many things I strive for in writing. I found her poems relatable and funny and melancholy, and gaining depth each time I read them. 

Aya: Love in Yop City - Marguerite Abouet & Clemént Oubrerie 

This book is perfect writing for atmospheric, buzzy, really absorbing community life, and all the excellent drama that accompanies that. 

 Sex Fantasy by Sophia Foster-Dimino 

I love Sophia Foster-Dimino’s work so much. It’s clever and dry and earnest and nuanced all at once. 

The Arrival by Shaun Tan. 

I grew up reading Tan’s stunning books and being deeply affected by them. He’s one of the only children’s book illustrators I know who really knows how to handle heavy subjects without being condescending, and never shying away from complexity. 

Skim by Mariko Tamaki & Jillian Tamaki

This comic marked me pretty considerably in my teens, when I didn’t realise exactly how hungry I was to be reading stories about mixed-race, queer teen witches. 

Small Beauty by Jiaqing Wilson-Yang  

Jiaqing’s debut novel is both slow burn and immediate impact, and lifted by feelings right to the surface. Her characters deserve multiple reads. 

(thanks to the excellent TheLiftedBrow.Com for this photo)

Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe

This book has been pretty central for me this year in deepening my understanding of what it means to have grown up a settler in so-called Australia. It’s also just critical knowledge for thinking about how we’re organising our agriculture and our communities now.