page_title: Ning Cai (writer)
section_title: Writing career
hierarchical_section_title: Ning Cai (writer) / Writing career
caption_attribution_description: English: Ning Cai promoting her book "Misdirection" at at Neo Kinokuniya Singapore in 19 April 2018
context_page_description: Ning Cai, is a Singapore Literature Prize nominated author, who was also long listed for the Epigram Books Fiction Prize in 2016. She is best recognised for her illusionist/ escapologist stage character Magic Babe Ning, and recognised by Channel News Asia as South East Asia's first professional female magician. Cai has been credited with popularising magic in Singapore. She has been lauded for her good looks in various media outlets as well as publications, both locally and overseas.
  In October 2014, Cai announced her retirement from performing as her famous alter ego Magic Babe Ning with a keen focus on her writing career. Soon after, she published her 2016 Singapore Literature Prize nominated autobiography Who Is Magic Babe Ning? She made a brief return to magic as the Mind Magic Mistress in 2017. To date, she has published 3 nonfiction books and 2 fiction books, with her latest bestselling crime fiction novel Misdirection being the first of a young adult trilogy.
context_section_description: Cai later revealed that it's time for her to do something for her health as her exhaustive work schedule had taken its toll on her. Prior to her announcement, she and her best friend Pamela Ho co-authored the bestselling nonfiction travelogue Adventures of 2 Girls, a compilation of experiences which 'traces the journey of two best friends who take a 9-month break from their successful careers to tick a big, fat item off their bucket list: to travel the world and write a book'. It was published by Marshall Cavendish in September 2012 and it debuted on The Straits Times Bestsellers List at #8 in October 2012.
  Following Adventures of 2 girls, Cai wrote a bestselling autobiography titled Who is Magic Babe Ning detailing her early years and 'reveals how the shy teenage girl transformed herself into magic's wild child and became a 2-time FHM cover girl, embraced by international media and respected by professional peers worldwide'. The book was published by Marshall Cavendish in December 2014 with a foreword written by internationally acclaimed author, Neil Gaiman.
  Cai called the book a eulogy of sorts to her famous stage character, Magic Babe Ning. It was shortlisted in 2016 for the Singapore Literature Prize in the English nonfiction category. Cai has also collaborated with her longtime friend and mentor, John Teo, president of the International Brotherhood of Magicians (Singapore) in creating a dual-cover activity book Game of Thoughts: Understanding Creativity Through Mind Games, a book that invokes creativity within readers through a series of 'brain teasers, puzzles conundrums, thought experiments and writing exercises'.The foreword of which, was penned by the renowned illusionist Lu Chen 劉謙.
  In November 2016, Cai's middle grade novel Magicienne was published. It was co-written by Don Bosco, an award-winning Singaporean author for children's books. The fiction book features a young protagonist and has been depicted as a 'younger version of Magic Babe'.
  In April 2018, Cai launched the first book of her young adult trilogy. Titled Misdirection: Book 1 of the Savant Trilogy, the book follows dynamic parkour champion, Maxine Schooling, who wakes up from a three-year coma and discovers that her family has been murdered by a killer who is still out there. Cai's original manuscript was previously longlisted for the Epigram Books Fiction Prize in 2016 and subsequently reworked and published by Epigram Books. Her book had spent six consecutive weeks on The Straits Times bestsellers list.
  Cai is no stranger as a panelist at the annual Singapore Writers Festival, and has also lent her full support for various literary festivals and events by the National Library Board and the National Arts Council to promote Singlit and reading to the public.
caption: Ning Cai promoting her new book Misdirection at Neo Kinokuniya Singapore on 19 April 2018
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