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Wen-yi Lee Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Wen-yi Lee

Wen-yi Lee

Wen-yi Lee Biography

Wen-yi Lee is a Clarion West alum from Singapore who likes writing about girls with bite, feral nature, and ghosts. Her speculative fiction has appeared in venues such as Lightspeed, Strange Horizons and Uncanny, as well as in various anthologies. The Dark We Know is her debut novel. Find her on social media at @wenyilee_ and otherwise at wenyileewrites.com.

Wen-yi Lee's website

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Interview

The author discusses her debut novel, The Dark We Know, with The Horror Writers Association during Asian Heritage in Horror Month.

What inspired you to start writing?

I've been writing stories since I could write and never stopped, basically. I just got around to actually learning how to revise and submit things to publishing places eventually, but it's one of those things I think I'd be doing all my life regardless. Just for me.

What draws you to the horror genre?

Well, I kind of like twisted things, as a baseline. As a writer, I like that horror as a genre lets you take an abstract fear and make it tangible, and confront and take apart all its angles. I also like the big, raw feelings; I like the transportive strangeness and the sense of confrontation and catharsis. Horror and romance are Barbenheimer genre sisters, really; they're both rooted in these big vulnerable core feelings. I love romance in my horror, or horror in my romance.

Do you include Asian and/or Pacific Islander characters and themes in your writing with purpose, and if so, what do you want to portray?

I do! The protagonist in my debut novel is Chinese American, but more often than not I write from my being Southeast Asian Chinese–specifically Singaporean–which is very different from the Asian American identity but shares enough here and there that I do resonate with Asian American ...

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Books by this Author

Books by Wen-yi Lee at BookBrowse
The Dark We Know jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Wen-yi Lee but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Jessica Knoll

    Jessica Knoll

    Jessica Knoll is the New York Times bestselling author of The Favorite Sister and Luckiest Girl Alive—now a major motion picture from Netflix starring Mila Kunis. She has been a senior editor at Cosmopolitan and the ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    The Dark We Know

    Try:
    Bright Young Women
    by Jessica Knoll

  • Kate Alice Marshall

    Kate Alice Marshall

    Kate Alice Marshall is the author of the young adult novels I Am Still Alive, Rules for Vanishing, and Our Last Echoes, as well as the Secrets of Eden Eld middle grade series. She lives outside of Seattle, where she spends ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    The Dark We Know

    Try:
    What Lies in the Woods
    by Kate Alice Marshall

We recommend 3 similar authors

View all 3 Read-Alikes

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