Stacey Lee

Lee is a fourth-generation Chinese-American.{{Cite web|url=http://www.bookslut.com/features/2015_07_021234.php|title=Bookslut {{!}} An Interview with Stacey Lee|website=www.bookslut.com|access-date=2019-04-10}} 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. Her father immigrated to San Francisco in 1953.{{Cite web|url=https://www.thepiratetree.com/2016/08/16/interview-with-stacey-lee-author-of-outrun-the-moon/|title=Interview with Stacey Lee, Author of Outrun the Moon – The Pirate Tree|last=lynmillerlachmann|date=16 August 2016 |language=en-US|access-date=2019-04-10}} She grew up in southern California and has two sisters.{{Cite web|url=https://emcastellan.com/2016/02/05/a-writer-in-the-spotlight-stacey-lee/|title=A Writer in the Spotlight – Stacey Lee|last=Castellan|first=E. M.|date=2016-02-05|website=EM Castellan|language=en|access-date=2019-04-10}} Lee wrote her first novel when she was nine and says that she always wanted to become a writer. Lee graduated from UCLA and has a J.D. degree from UC Davis School of Law. She practiced law in Silicon Valley for a few years prior to becoming an author.

Lee is also the legal director of the non-profit organization We Need Diverse Books and is one of the founders of the movement.{{Cite web|url=https://ew.com/article/2015/10/19/stacey-lee-outrun-the-moon-cover-excerpt/|title=Read an excerpt and see the gorgeous cover of Stacey Lee's novel 'Outrun the Moon'|website=EW.com|language=en|access-date=2019-04-10}}

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

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.{{Cite web|url=https://www.kalw.org/post/interview-childrens-author-stacey-lee|title=Interview with children's author Stacey Lee|last=Dornhelm|first=Rachel|website=www.kalw.org|language=en|access-date=2019-04-10}} 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. 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.

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. 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.

Her next novel, Luck of the Titanic, about a Chinese teenager boarding the RMS Titanic secretly, due to the Chinese Exclusion Act in place, was published by G.P. Putnam's Books for Young Readers in May 2021.{{Cite web|title=NPR Cookie Consent and Choices|url=https://choice.npr.org/index.html?origin=https://www.npr.org/2021/05/23/999065179/mays-ya-brings-unlikely-connections-between-very-different-stories|access-date=2021-09-27|website=choice.npr.org}}

Lee's Winston Chu Duology will debut in 2022 with Winston Chu Versus the Whimsies. The series is based on Chinese mythology and will be published under the Rick Riordan Presents imprint.{{Cite web|title=Rick Riordan on Stacey Lee's new book on Twitter|url=https://twitter.com/camphalfblood/status/1367126994719227906|access-date=2021-03-11|website=Twitter|language=en}}

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)
• Luck of the Titanic (G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers, 2021)

Short stories

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

Won

• 2016 SCBWI Crystal Kite Award for Under a Painted Sky{{Cite web|url=https://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=2759|title=Shelf Awareness for Monday, May 23, 2016|last=Tyler|first=Anne|website=www.shelf-awareness.com|access-date=2019-04-10}}
• 2016-2017 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature for Outrun the Moon{{Cite web|url=http://www.apalaweb.org/2016-2017-asianpacific-american-award-for-literature-selected/|title=2016-2017 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature Selected » Asian Pacific American Librarians Association|date=2017-01-23|website=Asian Pacific American Librarians Association|language=en-US|access-date=2019-04-10}}
• 2017 PEN Center USA Literary Award for Young Adult for Outrun the Moon{{Citation|first=Stacey|last=Lee|title=Stacey Lee Speech - PEN Center Literary Award for Young Adult Fiction|date=2018-01-13|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EwBcgiEWWE|access-date=2019-04-10}}

Nominated

• 2017-2018 Missouri Gateway Readers Award for Under a Painted Sky{{Cite web|url=https://masl.site-ym.com/page/1718FinalNominees|title=2017-2018 MASL Readers Awards Final Nominees - Missouri Association of School Librarians|website=masl.site-ym.com|access-date=2019-04-10}}

{{reflist}}

{{wikiquote}}

{{authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Stacey}}

Category:Living people

Category:American women writers of young adult literature

Category:American writers of young adult literature

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)

Category:University of California, Los Angeles alumni

Category:American lawyers of Chinese descent

Category:21st-century American women writers

Category:UC Davis School of Law alumni

Category:American novelists of Chinese descent

Category:American women children's writers

Category:American children's writers

Category:American women writers of Chinese descent