Lise Arin in conversation with Janice Y.K. Lee

Lise Arin has a PhD in English Literature from Columbia, and an undergraduate degree in History and Literature from Harvard. She has two children, and lives with her husband in New York City. She likes jigsaw puzzles, crossword puzzles, rap music, post-it notes, red pens, penguin classics, sushi, asparagus, black coffee, French wine, hiking, beach walks and firelight. She loves to throw dinner parties, although she can’t cook. She hates parades, circuses, suntans, tofu, bean sprouts, avocado and insects, and isn’t all that fond of driving. Matilda Empress is her first novel, although it has been in the making for twenty years. Janice Y. K. Lee was born and raised in Hong Kong, the child of Korean immigrants. She went to the United States for school and graduated from Harvard College with a degree in English and American Literature and Language. After college she moved to New York and worked for several years as an editor at Elle and Mirabella magazines before getting an MFA from Hunter College and starting her first novel. The Piano Teacher was published to critical acclaim from the New York Times, People, and O magazine, among others. It spent 19 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, was a Richard and Judy Summer Read pick (UK), and was translated into 26 languages worldwide. Janice’s writing has appeared in ELLE, Mirabella, Glamour, and Travel and Leisure, as well as numerous other publications. She lives in New York City with her husband and four children.