Cherylene Lee

Cherylene Lee, a fourth-generation Chinese American, was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. Like the narrator of her short story “Hollywood and the Pits,” she was a child performer in Hollywood.

In 1983, she started writing plays, poetry, and fiction. Her writing often deals with parallels and conflicts between East and West, past and present, science and art. Lee’s stories and poetry appear in many anthologies, notably in American Dragons (HarperCollins) and Charlie Chan is Dead (Penguin). Her plays include Yin Chin Bow, Wong Bow Rides Again, Arthur and Leila , Carry the Tiger to the Mountain, Knock Off Balance, Rice, Lost Vegas Acts, The Legacy Codes, Antigone Falun Gong, Mixed Messages, and And Justice for All: The Story of Lily Chin (screenplay).

Lee’s plays have been mounted on stages across the country, including Pan Asian Repertory Theatre off-Broadway, East West Players in Los Angeles, the Hangar Theatre in Ithaca, New York, Brava! Theatre For Women in the Arts, Theatre-Works and the Aurora in the Bay Area, and at the Contemporary American Theatre Festival in Shepherd’s Town, West Virginia.

Her memoir was supported by a San Francisco Arts Commission Cultural Equity Individual Artist grant and a Creative Work Fund literary grant in collaboration with the Center for Asian American Media.