Meet Kimberly Co, Winner of the 2025 Lost Island Writing Contest

It was so surreal to hold the physical form of Draft 1 of The Shadow of Billie Jenkins, and it dawned on me, at that moment, that my words will soon become a true finalized book—that one day I’m going to type the last word and step away from the computer, ending the entire editing process.

Holding what is essentially the culmination of my blood, sweat, and tears in my hands was truly a new feeling and a different high I’ll never get over—and I might chase it forever. My new goal as an author is to keep writing books so I can keep grasping parts of myself with my own two hands.

It’s like holding a part of you that is just beginning to take flight.

I jotted down the initial YA mystery concept in a Google Doc on February 17, 2024 (my mother’s birthday, funnily enough, shoutout to her—she’s one of my biggest champions!). I can’t recall how I ended up choosing the mystery route for this story, but I guess it was just the mystery of humanity as a whole that drove me there:

The paranormal side of the story didn’t cross my mind until one night, while I was lying in bed, and it suddenly clicked. My Google Doc was on fire as I fiercely typed every thought in my head about the protagonist’s shadow-reading abilities and what they’d look like.

Life Is Strange, a video game series that bridges the contemporary world with the supernatural, granting their characters otherworldly powers to tackle ordinary conflicts, served as the biggest source of inspiration here.

The Shadow of Billie Jenkins is inspired by Life Is Strange 1, and the second book in the duology, The Sickness of Bailey June, is inspired by Life Is Strange 2. If you’ve played both games, you can probably guess the exact vibe of this duology and of each book.

I’m really excited to see people’s reactions to the main character Billie Jenkins and her shadow-reading abilities. I never saw myself writing a fantastical story (as I’m not a big reader of fantasy in general, though I’m getting there!) but the blend of the ordinary world with supernatural abilities seemed like a good compromise, and it actually did wonders to my soul as a writer, not to be dramatic, and I’m eager to see what readers think of that blend.

Additionally, I’m looking forward to people’s reactions to the characters, the symbolism, and the psychology behind The Shadow of Billie Jenkins. In short, I guess you can say I’m secretly hoping readers will cry and scream at me (I’ve had those reactions to Holly Jackson’s books—another big inspiration—and it would blow my mind to have someone react the same way to my own story). And yes, I have specific scenes in mind, but I wouldn’t spoil anything in this interview.

Ultimately, I hope readers resonate with the story I’ve built, with the message I’ve honed, and I hope I don’t traumatize them with some of the darkest parts of myself I’ve shown through this story; it’s quite a personal one and it’s scary to have that out there for people to read, but it also feels good, especially due to the fact that The Shadow of Billie Jenkins was born out of a dark time in my own life. I want people to connect with it and know they are not alone in whatever they are struggling with.

Your shadow is mine, and my shadow is yours. And we will bear each other’s surfaces and depths.

Update: I just finished Draft 3! And I’m so proud of this story!

I play the guitar—though I’m not very good at it—and my favorite thing to do is to sit or lie down and strum chords over and over again. It’s so incredibly soothing, just feeling the vibrations of the strings through my body and fingers. When my mind gets too overwhelming, that’s usually what I can be found doing, aside from writing, to process my thoughts. It sounds a bit crazy, but I consider my guitar my closest and best friend, a secret confidant I can trust to be there for me no matter what, ready for me to let my emotions out safely.

I also like to write poetry, which is technically still writing, but it’s a different kind of pen and paper from novel-writing. I’m always listening to music by my favorite artists such as Olivia Rodrigo, Phoebe Bridgers, Lizzy McAlpine, and Noah Kahan, so when I write poetry, it almost feels like songwriting. It’s confessional and intimate, and challenges me to form metaphors that would be quite difficult to accomplish in prose alone, and I love it. I don’t feel the need to toil with poetry as much as I do with prose. You can just spit anything out and let it be and it’s cathartic. It doesn’t always land the way I want it to, but it lands nonetheless, and that’s healing enough.

I like to make Instagram content for my own books and come up with the visuals of it all; it’s quite thrilling seeing my vision come to life in my own way, although I don’t consider myself a graphic designer at all. I’m just having fun and that’s all that matters!

Consuming anything about aviation and history is also what I like to do in my spare time. I secretly want to become a pilot, and I can only dream about it—but hey, I once thought I could only dream about becoming an author, and it’s happening, so who knows what else will? And as I mentioned before, I love watching reaction channels. It makes me feel less alone, almost like I’m hanging out with a group of friends consuming stories that I love. I always get so excited when I see people unfamiliar with the media I know so well and watch their first-time reactions. There’s a joy that I get from it and it just fuels me to keep writing my own stories because I want to see people’s reactions to them too.

I’m always watching movies, TV series, and anything else that is a form of storytelling. And I like to read, of course. I also like hanging out with the people I love, family and friends. Basically, when I’m not making art, I’m consuming art. Or I become a semi-functional human being again, after being hunched over at my laptop in the dark for so long.

One of my other goals is to complete my undergraduate program! I’m from the Philippines, and initially, I was studying AB English Literature at the Ateneo de Manila University. I completed my first year there.

But recently, I transferred to the University of the Philippines and shifted courses, so now I’m studying under BA Creative Writing (which is more in line with what I want to do!).

Don’t get me wrong, I love English Literature and I will love it forever. But after thinking about it for some time, I realized that creative writing is where my heart is at and I never had a formal class on imaginative writing in an academic setting before, so I thought I should give it a try. And thankfully, so far at least, I’m not regretting my choice. I absolutely love my current classes (shoutout to my poetry class) and I’m looking forward to learning more, as I move on in the program.

Transferring schools for college has definitely been one of the highlights of 2026, and although it wasn’t an easy choice (I mainly transferred to UP for financial reasons, despite loving the life I was starting to cultivate in the Ateneo), I think attending the University of the Philippines was the better choice for me in the long run.

It’s quite daunting, thinking about the future, when I’ve already accomplished becoming an author at such a young age. It feels like a great thing, and it is truly the best thing I could’ve ever asked and prayed for, but it also feels a bit scary, not knowing what comes next after this high. Like, there’s a voice inside of me that taunts, What if this is all there is for you? And there will always be new lows to hit as well. It all has to come down at some point. But I’m trying not to get too cynical. I want to have hope and faith for the next chapter in my own story. And, especially, more imagination.

Of course, it’s a given that I’m excited for strangers to read and react to The Shadow of Billie Jenkins, but I’m also, on a slightly different level, excited for people I know to read it. It’s going to be a bit terrifying, but I’m so curious to see what my friends or family or mentors will think of my writing, so it will be a treat for sure.

I’m also excited to hold my own book for the first time—not a manuscript, but an actual printed and finished copy. I’m always daydreaming about it, honestly. I can’t wait to take my own book around, and maybe even see it in stores; it would be the most mind-blowing moment.

I’m also looking forward to launch day, as well as interacting with readers.

But most of all, I hope people can resonate and connect with the story I crafted, and find themselves in a way that allows me to find my own self. If only one person sees themselves in the words I’ve written, then I will have fulfilled my purpose as an author.