eastside wallflower

Jaclyn Lim writes stories that play with the tension between the familiar and the surreal, finding meaning in the overlooked corners of daily life — where the ordinary tilts just enough to reveal something strange or quietly transformative.

A Strange Case of Erasure, Epigram Books (2026)

A Strange Case of Erasure is Jaclyn’s debut novel, rooted in contemporary Singapore life. Seok Lin, a forty-year-old stay-at-home mother, holds her family together through the small invisible labours no one notices: the school runs, the doctor’s visits, the endless quiet tending.

Then she begins to physically vanish—a toe, then an arm, until she fades from view completely. There is a name for it: Progressive Identity Attenuation Disorder, a condition afflicting women who have long carried the full weight of domestic life. As the world stops seeing her, Seok Lin must fight her way back into view.

Blending domestic realism with a speculative edge, A Strange Case of Erasure is a story about invisible labour and what it takes to be seen.

The Cat Who Waits, A Few Little Words II: Memories of the Future — 60 Literary Works From Tampines And Beyond (2026)

A Few Little Words II: Memories of the Future — 60 Literary Works from Tampines and Beyond was commissioned by Our Tampines Hub, as part of NAC’s Arts & Culture Nodes Network in partnership with the Singapore Writers Festival, and produced by the collective Vertical Submarine.

Edited by Vertical Submarine, Yeow Kai Chai and Yong Shu Hoong, it features 60 literary works from Tampines and beyond, developed through workshops, community prompts and site-specific reflections.

Jaclyn’s short story, The Cat Who Waits, was selected through an open call. Set in a Tampines void deck, it is narrated by an abandoned cat keeping vigil for the owner who left her, moving through memory and territory toward the quiet possibility of being claimed again.

Poolside Man, A Few Little Words: 60 Literary Works From Tampines And Beyond (2025)

A Few Little Words: 60 Literary Works from Tampines and Beyond was commissioned by Our Tampines Hub, as part of NAC’s Arts & Culture Nodes Network in partnership with the Singapore Writers Festival, and produced by the collective Vertical Submarine.

It features 60 literary works from Tampines and beyond, developed through workshops, community prompts and site-specific reflections.

Jaclyn’s short story, Poolside Man, was selected through an open call. Set in Tampines, it follows an unnamed protagonist who slips into condominium pools at night, moving through borrowed water as he reckons with loss and a yearning to belong.

FORTHCOMING

Look Out of the Window: What Do You See?, Epigram Books (2027)

Jaclyn’s debut picture book follows a little girl who falls sick and is stuck at home, her mother coaxes her to put down her screen and look out of the window instead. What begins as reluctant looking soon turns into an adventure, as she notices things no one else has and finds herself solving a small neighbourhood mystery.

Set in Singapore and told in playful rhyme, the story celebrates the everyday wonders waiting just outside the window for anyone who cares to look.

Slated for publication in September 2027.