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J.Y. Cheung, a Camelot Academy alumni, began his journey as an author when he was fourteen. As a young writer, he started to create his imaginary world straight from “his heart”; however, after writing over 80,000 words, he realized his imaginary world became too small and his initial writing was inadequate. It was difficult for him to abandon his first manuscript. During the subsequent three months, he didn’t write a word for the manuscript. Instead, he began to submerge more in the text of great philosophers, authors, and theologians; he explored more on the topics of political philosophy, religion, warfare, culture, humanity in justice, peace, hatred, prejudice, etc.

It was exuberant for him to imagine and outline his “New World” with different nations, cultures, philosophies and a vast cast of characters with various ethnic backgrounds and textures. Then, again came the treacherous reality: writing them all down. In addition to his highly demanding school workload and packed extra-curriculum activities, he set out to write a trilogy with the goal of completing the first book prior to going to college. It was not a comfortable process for him as a young author to tackle some of the issues. At times, it became quite depressing to stare squarely at the dark side of humanity; but he remained hopeful. He wrote almost everyday and the manuscript swelled to over 160,000 words; yet, it was nowhere near the depth and literary realism he would like to see. He had to slice the original book 1 into two separate books.

Pressure was mounting: schoolwork, SAT tests, college applications and more.

Restarting with about 90,000 words for the new book 1, he continued on his seemingly endless journey, often times alone deep into the long cold nights. Finally, 4 years later, he arrived at the finish line on October 3, 2006 with the completion of his first draft of book 1, Path of the Chosen, with more than 180,000 words in length. It took him another year and a half to finish many rounds of revisions while double-majoring in college as a freshman.

That was half of his story.

He started to study piano at the age of eight, quite late for anyone who is serious about music. He was auditioned and taken in at the age of fourteen by an illustrious master piano teacher, Mr. Chun Yi Wang. Authoring an epic novel series and training in classical music seemed to unexpectedly lead J.Y. Cheung on to another path: music composition. It all started during his first setback of writing his book when he had to abandon his first manuscript. As a relief of his frustration at the time, he began to compose aimless phrases, then phrases as themes for characters in his book, then duet and ensemble pieces for scenes. He soon found, at times, that his music was able to depict emotions better than his words. So, he went on and began to score music for his book. At the age of 17, he completed the draft score of his first piano concerto: Under Siege, Concerto of War, for Chapter 18 & 19 of Path of the Chosen. Behind the awards, applause and standing ovations, he was often plagued with insecurity about his music because he had not yet been formally trained in music composition. In spite of these challenges, he continued to compose a suite of scores, of which many are symphonic, intended for a full-length theatrical concert - The Musical Journey to the World of Giapactum.

With his first book now ready for release, J.Y. Cheung has shifted his focus to his music in preparation for “Up Close”, a multimedia tour for the young author, composer and pianist to meet his readers and premiere his music.