photo credit: Scott Adamson

Y. S. Lee’s fiction includes the critically acclaimed YA mystery series The Agency (Candlewick Press/Walker Books UK), which was translated into six languages and won the Canadian Children’s Book Centre’s inaugural John Spray Mystery Award. Her first picture book, Mrs. Nobody, will be published by Groundwood Books in 2025.

Ying’s poems have won CV2’s 2022 Foster Prize and been finalists for various awards in Canada, the US, and Australia. She published her first chapbook, Exit Permit, with Anstruther Press in 2023 and her lyric essay, “Tek tek”, was shortlisted for the 2022 CBC Nonfiction Prize.

Her friends call her Ying. You should, too.

A note on place: I’m an immigrant and settler living in Kingston, Ontario. Here’s a telling of its pre-settler history, related by Zoogipon Ikwe. English speakers on this land often spell its Mohawk name as “Katarokwi”, but there’s some ambiguity around the translation. Laura Murray digs into its naming and meaning in this blog post.