Daniel W.K. Lee

Born Lý Phụ Cường, (Originally 李富強, later changed to 李華強 in Traditional Chinese, 李华强 in Simplified Chinese) in Kuching, Malaysia, Daniel is a third-generation refugee going back to his grandparents on both maternal and paternal sides from Guangdong province, China to Vietnam; his Saigon-born parents became refugees in Malaysia after the purge of ethnic Chinese from Vietnam during the late 1970s before settling in the United States.

Raised in the western suburbs of Chicago (first in Forest Park, Illinois and later in Downers Grove, Illinois) along with his older and younger sisters in a mish-mash of Cantonese, Vietnamese, and American cultures, Daniel eventually moved to New York City in August 1996 to attend New York University, where he received his BA from the Gallatin School of Individualized Study. After undergraduate studies, he would apply his skills in the dot com and arts non-profit worlds, at Out magazine, as a freelance market editor, infrequent fashion stylist, a product manager, and creative director in the licensed toy/stationery/gifts/watches/clocks/arts & crafts industry.

In 2006, Daniel earned his MFA in Creative Writing from The New School whose creative thesis became the basis of his first book’s manuscript. In 2013, he worked as a campaign manager for a Green Party candidate for New York City council, and not long after in February 2014, Daniel left the Big Apple, his home of nearly 18 years. He likes to say he is originally from Kuching, raised in Chicagoland, but grew the fuck up in New York City. Daniel relocated to Seattle, Washington in March 2014 and after a little over five years in the Pacific Northwest outdoor adventure-seeking, sharpening his ratchetness and spinsterhood, and founding the House of Peril, he and his preposterously beautiful whippet Camden moved to New Orleans in December 2019.

His creative work has been widely published online and in print, including the Lambda Literary Award-nominated anthology Take Out: Queer Writing from Asian Pacific America, the Lambda Literary Award-winning anthology I Do/I Don’t: Queers on Marriage, and most recently: Xavier Review, SUSPECT, Titled House Review, and The New York Times, and in the UK’s Oxford Poetry and Agenda. Anatomy of Want, published by the QueerMojo imprint of Rebel Satori Press in November 2019, is Daniel’s first book of poetry.

A complete list of his published work can be viewed in the Curriculum Vitae section to the left.