ABOUT

Hi there. I’m R.J.K. Lee, an American writer living in Japan. I write fiction and poetry with a taste for the strange, the literary, and the unexpected, ranging across science fiction, fantasy, supernatural fiction, horror, and the occasional story that refuses to fit neatly into any category.

Originally from Corvallis, Oregon, I still have a soft spot for the Pacific Northwest. I’ve lived in Japan for nearly two decades, where my work has taken me through teaching, proofreading, translation, voice recording, and other unexpected detours. Alongside those pursuits, I’ve continued writing, submitting, publishing, and gradually building a body of fiction and poetry.

My love of fiction and poetry goes back to being the quiet kid scribbling maps, drawings, and strange words into notebooks—or walking down the sidewalk with a paperback held in front of my face. I won a personal essay contest as a child, and in college I received third place in fiction in the University of Oregon’s KIDD Creative Writing Prize for an English-Japanese short story in 2005.

Over the years, I’ve made a habit of setting myself slightly ridiculous creative goals. Sometimes that has meant challenging myself to reach a certain number of submissions or rejections; other times it has meant finishing a novel, sending work to markets I never expected to hear from, or simply continuing to write when life became busy. The numbers change, but the underlying goal remains the same: keep making things and keep sending them out into the world.

My fiction and poetry have appeared in magazines and anthologies including Zooscape, Space & Time, DreamForge Anvil, DreamForge Magazine, Eye to the Telescope, Tales and Feathers Magazine, Triangulation, and others. My work has also received recognition in writing contests, including a 2021 Writers of the Future Semi-Finalist placement and the 2005 University of Oregon KIDD Creative Writing Prize.

I’m continuing to work toward more publications while bringing longer projects back into shape, including novels and other works I hope to eventually share with readers.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a look around, read a story or two, and see where they take you.