Grace Yee is a poet, writer and creative writing teacher. Her debut verse novel, ''Chinese Fish'', won both the Victorian Prize for Literature and the

Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry The Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry is an award at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, presented annually to the winner of the poetry category. The winner receives a 10,000 prize. History The New Zealand Book Awards were set up by the New Z ...

in 2024.

Early life and education

Yee was born in

British Hong Kong Hong Kong was a colony and later a dependent territory of the British Empire from 1841 to 1997, apart from a period of occupation under the Japanese Empire from 1941 to 1945 during the Pacific War. The colonial period began with the Briti ...

and grew up in New Zealand and Australia. She graduated from Deakin University with a MA. She later completed a PhD at the University of Melbourne. Her thesis was titled "Beneath the Long White Cloud : settler Chinese women's storytelling in Aotearoa New Zealand".

Career

Yee has lectured at both Deakin University and the University of Melbourne. She was awarded a Creative Fellowship by the

State Library of Victoria State Library Victoria (SLV) is the state library of Victoria, Australia. Located in Melbourne, it was established in 1854 as the Melbourne Public Library, making it Australia's oldest public library and one of the first free libraries in the ...

in 2019. Her poems have been published in Australia in ''Overland'''','' I''sland'''', Meanjin,'' '' Southerly, Westerly, Rabbit'' and ''Cordite Poetry'' ''Review.'' They have also appeared in ''The Shanghai Literary'' ''Review, Women’s Museum of California, Hainamana'' and the ''Poetry New Zealand Yearbook.'' She adapted her prizewinning verse novel, ''Chinese Fish'', from her PhD thesis. The book was selected as winner of the 2024

Victorian Premier's Prize for Poetry The Victorian Premier's Prize for Poetry, formerly known as the C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry, is a prize category in the annual Victorian Premier's Literary Award. As of 2011 it has an enumeration of 25,000. The winner of this category prize vies w ...

from 807 entries. It subsequently won the 2024 Victorian Prize for Literature, the first win for poetry in ten years.

Awards and recognition

* Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize, 2019, third place for "Chinny Chin Chin" * Winner, Patricia Hackett Prize, 2020, winner for "For the Chinese Merchants of Melbourne" * Peter Steele Poetry Award, 2020 * Anne Elder Award, 2023, highly commended for ''Chinese Fish'' * Victorian Prize for Literature and

, 2024, winner for ''Chinese Fish'' *

Ockham New Zealand Book Awards The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards are literary awards presented annually in New Zealand. The awards began in 1996 as the merger of two literary awards events: the New Zealand Book Awards, which ran from 1976 to 1995, and the Goodman Fielder W ...

, 2024, winner for ''Chinese Fish''

Publications

* ''Chinese Fish'', Giramondo Publishing, 2023 * "For the Chinese Merchants of Melbourne", published in ''Best of Australian Poems 2021'',

Ellen van Neerven Ellen van Neerven (born 1990) is an Aboriginal Australian author, educator and editor. They are queer and non-binary. Their first work of fiction, ''Heat and Light'' (2013), won several awards, and in 2019 Van Neerven won the Queensland Premier ...

and Toby Fitch, editors, * "Tabulations (A Nine Year)", published in ''Best of Australian Poems 2022'', Judith Beveridge and

Jeanine Leane Jeanine is a given name. Notable people with the name include: *Jeanine Áñez (born 1967), Bolivian politician and lawyer who served as Interim President of Bolivia from 2019 to 2020 *Jeanine Bapst (born 1968), Swiss ski mountaineer *Jeanine Basin ...

, editors,

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Yee, Grace Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century Australian poets Australian women poets Deakin University alumni University of Melbourne alumni