Stacey Lee

Stacey Heather Lee[1] is an American author of young adult fiction, best known for Under a Painted Sky and Outrun the Moon. Her works tend to be contemporary and historical fiction, with some magical elements.

For the New Zealand film director, see Stacey Lee (film director).
Stacey Lee
LanguageEnglish
NationalityAmerican
Alma materUCLA, UC Davis School of Law
GenreYoung adult fiction
Notable worksUnder a Painted Sky, Outrun the Moon
Notable awards2016 SCBWI Crystal Kite Award, 2016-2017 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, 2017 PEN Center USA Literary Award
Years active2016-now
Children2
Website
www.staceyhlee.com

Personal life

Lee is a fourth-generation Chinese-American.[2] Her family on her mother's side originally came to America in the 1800s, but wasn't permitted to stay due to the Chinese Exclusion Act.[2] Her father immigrated to San Francisco in 1953.[2][3] She grew up in southern California and has two sisters.[2][1][4] Lee wrote her first novel when she was nine and says that she always wanted to become a writer.[1] Lee graduated from UCLA and has a law degree from UC Davis School of Law.[1] She practiced law in Silicon Valley for a few years prior to becoming an author.[1]

Lee is also the legal director of the non-profit organization We Need Diverse Books and is one of the founders of the movement.[2][5]

Lee is married and has two children, a daughter and a son.[2]

Selected works

Her debut novel, Under a Painted Sky, about a Chinese-American girl and an African-American girl who travel the Oregon Trail during the gold rush was published in 2016.[6] She was inspired to write Under the Painted Sky based on her complex family history in the 1800s and chose a Chinese-American protagonist who doesn't speak Chinese like her.[2] Aside from similarities in the main character's upbringing and her own, she chose not to incorporate details of her family history into the novel.[2]

Outrun the Moon, her second novel, set during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, about a Chinese-American teen struggling to escape her family's circle of poverty, was published the same year.[5] She drew on her family history again for the novel and did field research traveling to various locations in the novel, among them Chinatown and the Golden Gate Park.[3]

Bibliography

Novels

  • Under a Painted Sky (G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers, 2016)
  • Outrun the Moon (G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers, 2016)
  • The Secret of a Heart Note (Katherine Tegen Books, 2016)
  • The Downstairs Girl (G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers, 2019)

Short stories

  • "Land of the Sweet, Home of the Brave" in The Radical Element (Candlewick Press, 2018)

Awards

Won

Nominated

  • 2017-2018 Missouri Gateway Readers Award for Under a Painted Sky[10]

References
  1. "Author Interview with Stacey Lee!". Books Inc. - The West's Oldest Independent Bookseller. Retrieved 2019-04-10.
  2. "Bookslut | An Interview with Stacey Lee". www.bookslut.com. Retrieved 2019-04-10.
  3. lynmillerlachmann. "Interview with Stacey Lee, Author of Outrun the Moon – The Pirate Tree". Retrieved 2019-04-10.
  4. Castellan, E. M. (2016-02-05). "A Writer in the Spotlight – Stacey Lee". EM Castellan. Retrieved 2019-04-10.
  5. "Read an excerpt and see the gorgeous cover of Stacey Lee's novel 'Outrun the Moon'". EW.com. Retrieved 2019-04-10.
  6. Dornhelm, Rachel. "Interview with children's author Stacey Lee". www.kalw.org. Retrieved 2019-04-10.
  7. Tyler, Anne. "Shelf Awareness for Monday, May 23, 2016". www.shelf-awareness.com. Retrieved 2019-04-10.
  8. "2016-2017 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature Selected » Asian Pacific American Librarians Association". Asian Pacific American Librarians Association. 2017-01-23. Retrieved 2019-04-10.
  9. StaceyLee Author (2018-01-13), Stacey Lee Speech - PEN Center Literary Award for Young Adult Fiction, retrieved 2019-04-10
  10. "2017-2018 MASL Readers Awards Final Nominees - Missouri Association of School Librarians". masl.site-ym.com. Retrieved 2019-04-10.
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