Xin chào! Hello! Konnichiwa! 

thuỳ cốm was born and raised in Hanoi, Vietnam. Currently, she is living in Tokyo, Japan with her husband. She makes picture books and illustrations in gouache & colored pencils, sometimes digital, about modest, beautiful, ridiculous, frustrating things in life. She had her first published book when she was a second-year Art college student; a funny story about a baby giraffe and his mother called A Toast for sunny days! Until now, she has created nearly 20 books and multiple commercial art.

Her creative style is a mixture of humor, marvelous and loneliness. She finds great joy in normal life, with its nonsense and randomness here and there. Her strength lies in my ability to find humor in almost anything, under any circumstances then interpret into art. She thinks humor is something to encourage us. One way to defeat what we’re scared of the most is turning it into something ridiculously funny - Riddikulus! 

The marvelous element of her work is adding a bit of nonsensical delight. To her, marvelous means a fresh feeling. Most of her stories have a modern setting and ordinary life premise, but then comes the twist. In Greeny’s Green Day, a small girl hated taking noon naps, so she ran away then turned into a tree, since trees don’t sleep. Lastly, she wants her works to have some space for readers to enter and fill the gap. The loneliness that she brings to her stories is actually more about comfort and connection. For readers (and thuỳ herself), books can be great friends who understand. They are very patient, non-judgmental, and do not complain. 

Aside from making art, thuỳ does editing jobs and journalistic writing. When she is not productive at all, she drinks a lot of tea and watches all kinds of movies.