about
Mira T. Lee’s debut novel, Everything Here is Beautiful, was selected as a Top 10 Debut by the American Booksellers Association, and named a Best Fiction title of 2018 by Amazon, O Magazine, Real Simple, and the Goodreads Readers Choice Awards. Her stories and essays have appeared in publications such as the New York Times, Tin House, Real Simple, the Southern Review, Missouri Review, and Harvard Review, among others, and have twice received special mention for the Pushcart Prize. She has also been the recipient of an Artist’s Fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Mira has worked as a graphic designer for over 20 years, specializing in design for authors, artists, musicians and other creative types. In her previous lives, she has also been known as a pop-country drummer, a salsa dancing fanatic, and a biology graduate student. Mira is an alum of Stanford University, and lives in Cambridge, MA.
Mira T. Lee’s debut novel, Everything Here Is Beautiful, was named Best Fiction of 2018 by the American Booksellers Association, Amazon, O Magazine, and Goodreads, among others. She lives in Cambridge, MA.
interviews
Minnesota Public Radio: Author Mira T. Lee on dealing with mental illness in families
KERA Think (Dallas/Fort Worth): Two Sisters, One Mental Illness
PRI Studio 360: Girl Before “Girl Before A Mirror”
Reading Women Podcast: An interview with Mira T. Lee
LitHub: Lifting Up Overlooked Authors: On Craft, Identity, and Insecurities. Debut Author Mira T. Lee In Conversation with Celeste Ng
Asian-American Writers Workshop, The Margins: Creating as you go, an interview with Mira T. Lee
Bloom: Everything Here is Beautiful: Q & A with Mira T. Lee
Boston Globe: Bibliophiles: Stories that inhabit gray areas attract Mira T. Lee
Los Angeles Review of Books: Multiculturalism and Mental Illness: An Interview With Mira T. Lee
WBUR’s Radio Boston: Novelist Mira T. Lee On Responsibility And Loyalty Among Sisters
Leslie Lindsay: Weekend Reading with Mira T. Lee
Shelf Awareness: The Many Perspectives of Mental Illness
F(r)iction: An Interview with Mira T. Lee
Library Journal: Debut Spotlight
Massachusetts Cultural Council: ArtSake Blog
Deborah Kalb: Q & A with Mira T. Lee
Novelist lauded by O Magazine featured at Palm Beach Book Festival
mira’s recs & faves
books
Light In August (William Faulkner), Laughable Loves (Milan Kundera), Exit West (Mohsin Hamid), Anything Is Possible (Elizabeth Strout), Olive Kitteridge (Elizabeth Strout), My Brilliant Friend (Elena Ferrante), You Are Not A Stranger Here (Adam Haslett), The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini),The Association of Small Bombs (Karan Mahajan), A Visit From the Goon Squad (Jennifer Egan), Tenth of December (George Saunders), Let the Great World Spin (Collum McCann), Eleven Hours (Pamela Erens), The Sweet Hereafter (Russell Banks), Difficult Loves (Italo Calvino), Empire Falls (Richard Russo), short stories by William Trevor, Amy Hempel, Raymond Carver,The Trumpet of the Swan (E.B. White), The Phantom Tollbooth (Norton Juster), Gerald and Piggy books by Mo Willems
tv, movies, podcasts
S-Town (podcast), This American Life (podcast), Startup (podcast), Serial (podcast), The Florida Project, Downton Abbey, The Wire, Never Have I Ever, Homeland, Friday Night Lights, Six Feet Under, Getting On, Sex and the City, You Can Count On Me, Y Tu Mama Tambien, About Schmidt, Manchester-By-The-Sea, Sing!, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, A Separation, The Guns of Navarone, The Sound of Music, Project Runway, So You Think You Can Dance, The Daily Show
etc.
round bales of hay, big yellow heavy machinery, the understated, wise people, strange places, light, typography, dance, quarter notes on the ride cymbal, rivets, labradoodles, a close game of Scrabble, total absorption, grapefruit scents, Little League baseball, the sound of ball bearings swishing around in a wide bottomed glass
fiction & memoirs that deal with mental illness
Imagine Me Gone (Adam Haslett, 2016), Dear Fang, With Love (Rufi Thorpe 2016), Challenger Deep (Neal Shusterman, YA, 2015), All the Bright Places (Jennifer Niven, YA, 2015), The Shock of the Fall (Nathan Filer, 2013), You Are Not A Stranger Here (Adam Haslett, 2002), I Know This Much Is True (Wally Lamb, 1998), The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath, 1963).
No One Cares About Crazy People: The Chaos and Heartbreak of Mental Health in America (Ron Powers, 2017), My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward (Mark Lukach, 2017), A Mother’s Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy (Sue Klebold, 2016), The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness (Elyn Saks, 2007), Crazy: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness (Pete Earley, 2006), Divided Minds: Twin Sisters and Their Journey Through Schizophrenia (Pamela Spiro Wagner, Carolyn Spiro, 2005), Angelhead: My Brother’s Descent Into Madness (Greg Bottoms, 2000), Imagining Robert: My Brother, Madness, and Survival, A Memoir – Jay Neugeboren (1997), An Unquiet Mind (Kay Redfield Jamison, 1996), Girl, Interrupted (Susanna Kaysen, 1994)