“One of Singapore’s most inventive literary voices” (F Zine), Wen-yi Lee is the Nebula Award-nominated author of The Dark We Know (Gillian Flynn Books, 2024), a gothic YA horror inspired by Spring Awakening; and When They Burned the Butterfly and Where Rivers Made the Gods (Tor/Wildfire, 2025/2027), an adult historical fantasy duology about a girl gang in postcolonial Singapore’s Chinese secret societies. She is also the editor of YA horror anthology The Kids Came Back Wrong (Bloomsbury, 2027).

A Clarion West Workshop alum, her short fiction and essays have appeared in Lightspeed, Uncanny, Strange Horizons, Nightmare, and Reactor, among others, as well as best-of collections and anthologies including Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, Best New Singapore Short Stories and the USA Today-bestselling Amplitudes: Stories of Queer and Trans Futurity. Her work usually revolves around problem women, haunted bodies, and history, and has been supported by the Carl Brandon Society’s Octavia E Butler Memorial Scholarship, the UK National Centre for Writing, and the National Arts Council of Singapore. She has been commissioned by National Gallery Singapore, The Straits Times, and more. She was a Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 awardee for 2026.

Outside of writing, she has organised literary events including the Singapore Pavilion at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the Singapore Book Awards, the Singapore Children’s Book Festival, and the Asian Festival of Children’s Content, and produced content for the National Museum of Singapore. She is also the current managing editor of prose.sg, a literary archive of Singaporean writers, and has mentored unpublished writers to develop their manuscripts through programmes like Author Mentor Match and Write Team Mentors. She graduated from University College London.

(Photo: Gianna Chun)