Lee attended high school at Seoul Foreign School, an English-language international school, as his Korean American family lived in both Texas and South Korea. He went to college at Cornell University, majored in mathematics, and earned a master's degree in secondary mathematics education at Stanford University. He has worked as an analyst for an energy market intelligence company, done web design, and taught mathematics.^[3] Lee is a trans man.^[4][5]

Since his first sale in 1999, Lee has published short fiction in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed and elsewhere. Three of his stories have been reprinted in Gardner Dozois's The Year's Best Science Fiction anthologies. Dozois wrote that Lee is "one of those helping to move science fiction into the twenty-first century".^[6]

In 2012, Lee wrote Winterstrike, a browser-based text adventure game, for Failbetter Games.

Aliette de Bodard wrote the introduction for Conservation of Shadows and has twice recommended one of Lee's stories in her best of year-round-ups: she selected "Ghostweight" as a favorite of 2011^[7] and "The Knight of Chains, the Deuce of Stars" was chosen in her 2013 eligibility and recommendations post as "the one that most blew me away this year".^[8] "Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain" and "Ghostweight" were both nominated for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award and Locus Award and were both reprinted in two "Year's Best" anthologies. "The Pirate Captain's Daughter" was nominated for the WSFA Small Press Award.^[9]

His debut novel, Ninefox Gambit, received the 2017 Locus Award for Best First Novel.^[10] It was also nominated for the 2016 Nebula and Hugo Awards for Best Novel and the 2017 Clarke award.^{[11][12][13][14]} Revenant Gun, the third novel in the Machineries of Empire series, was nominated for a 2019 Hugo Award.^[15][14]

Dragon Pearl, the first book of the middle grade Thousand Worlds series, was released on January 15, 2019, and published by Disney Hyperion under the "Rick Riordan Presents" publishing imprint and became a New York Times bestseller.^[16] Dragon Pearl won the 2020 Locus Award for Best Young Adult Book and the 2020 Mythopoeic Award for Children's Literature.^{[17][18][19][14]} It was a finalist for the 2020 Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book and the 2019 Andre Norton Award.^[20][21][14]

Lee announced on his website that a third book in the middle grade Thousand Worlds series and Lancers, a new young adult space opera series, are forthcoming.^[22][23]

In 2021, Lee's short story "The Mermaid Astronaut" was nominated for a Hugo Award.^[14]

Novels edit

Machineries of Empire trilogy

1. Ninefox Gambit (paperback 1st ed.). Solaris. 2016. ISBN 978-1781084496.
2. Raven Stratagem (paperback 1st ed.). Solaris. 2017. ISBN 978-1781085370.
3. Revenant Gun (paperback 1st ed.). Solaris. 2018. ISBN 978-1781086070.

Thousand Worlds series (middle grade)

1. Dragon Pearl (hardcover 1st ed.). Rick Riordan Presents. 2019. ISBN 978-1368013352.
2. Tiger Honor (hardcover 1st ed.). Rick Riordan Presents. 2022. ISBN 978-1368055543.
3. Fox Snare (hardcover 1st ed.). Rick Riordan Presents. 2023. ISBN 978-1368081924.

Standalone novels

• Phoenix Extravagant (paperback ed.). Solaris. 2020. ISBN 978-1781089194.

Collections edit

• Conservation of Shadows (paperback ed.). Prime Books. 2013. ISBN 978-1607013877.
• The Candlevine Gardener and Other Stories. Self-published. 2015.
• The Fox's Tower and Other Tales, Self-published, 2015; republished by Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2021 (ISBN 978-1524868130)
• Hexarchate Stories (paperback ed.). Solaris. 2019. ISBN 978-1781085646.

Short stories edit

Machineries of Empire stories

Other short fiction

• Yoon Ha Lee at Library of Congress, with 5 library catalog records
• Yoon Ha Lee at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database  
• Interview at Clarkesworld, May 2013
• Review of Conservation of Shadows Archived 2013-11-03 at the Wayback Machine at Strange Horizons
• Review of Ninefox Gambit by N.K. Jemisin at NY Times
• Short stories available free online