Biography

Lisa Yee’s groundbreaking Millicent Min, Girl Genius, featuring one of the first Asian American protagonists in contemporary literature, debuted in 2003. Her recent novel, Maizy Chen’s Last Chance, has garnered numerous awards including a Newbery Honor, National Book Award Finalist, and the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature. And Lisa’s latest book, The Misfits (illustrated by Dan Santat) was named the Barnes & Noble 2024 Overall Children’s and YA Book of the Year, and has remained in the New York Times bestseller list for several months.

Lisa’s more than twenty-two books include two young adult novels, Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time, the Bobby Ellis-Chan series, several American Girl books, and the popular DC Super Hero Girls novel series.

The child of two public school teachers, Lisa is a third-generation Chinese American. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she was on the debate team and the president of the honor society. On occasion, Lisa would ditch class and sneak off to the library (she never quite figured out the juvenile delinquent thing). At the University of Southern California, she majored in English and Humanities and snacking at odd hours.

Lisa was a hand model (once), wrote jingles and Red Lobster menus, and was a writer/producer for Walt Disney World. Her book research has taken her to Japan (for ninja training!), the Amazon rain-forest (she met a baby sloth!), and Hawaii (to learn how to surf!). For the past several years, Lisa has helped select NPR’s Best Books of Year for over a decade. Even though she’s had lots of interesting careers, Lisa says that being an author is the best job in the world.

Lisa divides her time between Western Massachusetts and Los Angeles, especially when it’s cold.

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