T.K. Lee’s award-winning work crosses multiple genres: both on stage and off. At times a playwright, and other times a poet, he is at all times firmly planted in the southern tradition of gothic storytelling. His work has appeared in national publications including The Louisville Review, Carolina Quarterly andDeep South Magazine, to name a few. Internationally, his short fiction has been translated into French and Italian, and, in 2018, selections of his poetry, short fiction and playwriting were anthologized for the first time, through two collections published in the U.K.

Lee has also won accolades for his work in theatre, including here at SETC as well as AACTFest. His award-winning credits include turns taken as director (for 2009’s SETC winner Catfish Moon and other honors at AACTFest Tacoma), as actor (for 2017’s winner Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike and other nominations at AACTFest Rochester), and as playwright (for 2018’s SETC winner Paper Thin).

After receiving his MFA in 2015 from Spalding University in Louisville, KY, he immediately joined the faculty in the nascent MFA in Creative Writing program at Mississippi University for Women, teaching both undergraduate literature and creative writing, as well as playwriting and poetry. His first collection of poetry, entitled To Square a Circle, debuted this past October at the Eudora Welty Symposium and has garnered high critical praise for Lee’s “uncanny wit; impeccable sense of pacing” which is ushering in “a dynamic new voice to southern poetry.”

On a personal note, he has three cats (Peej, Beeze and YinBin) because he was a nice guy that one time and fed them…and now they won’t leave. In fact, they’ve been not leaving for the last six years, four years, and going on three months, respectively.