About

Nicole W. Lee is a poet born in Sydney, Australia to Chinese (Teochew and Hakka) Malaysian parents. Raised on the traditional lands of the Bidjigal people of the Dharug nation (north-western Sydney), she has since lived on the traditional lands of the Kulin nation (Melbourne) and the Lenape (New York).

Her Pushcart Prize nominated poetry has been published in Agni, Crazyhorse, Gulf Coast (now swamp pink), Meanjin, Palette Poetry, and wildness, and has received scholarships and fellowships from Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference (Rona Jaffe Foundation scholar), Tin House Summer and Winter Workshops, Palm Beach Poetry Festival (Kundiman scholar), Association of Writers and Writing Programs, and Miami Book Fair, as well as grants from Create NSW, Inner West Council, Writers Victoria/Neilma Sidney Literary Travel Fund, and the Ian Potter Cultural Trust. Her poetry and lyrics have been performed on Channel 7’s Sunrise and at concerts by the Inner West Collective, the American Australian Association, and the Institute for Australian and Chinese Arts and Culture at Western Sydney University. Her fiction has received a fellowship from VONA/Voices. Her long poetic sequence “Deluge: A Chinese Almanac” won the 2024 Palette Poetry Previously Published Poem Prize, and is being optioned for a screenplay by filmmaker Grace Tan and for a stage play by playwright Serena Coady. Nicole is a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College and an assistant poetry editor at Four Way Review. While at Warren Wilson, Nicole was an Inclusion Intern and helped to create the podcast “Next Chapter,” which features Warren Wilson BIPOC and LGBTQI+ students and alumni.

Her writing for performance has been selected for a WestWords/Varuna Emerging Writers Residency, the Contemporary Asian Australian Performance’s (CAAP) Inaugural Artist Lab, Artist Lab 2.0 and Longhouse, and a New Opera Ventures Australia (NOVA) fellowship with Victorian Opera and Chamber Made Opera, as well as being featured on Channel 7’s ‘Sunrise’ and performed at the opening of William Yang’s photography exhibition ‘Claiming Heritage’. In 2020, Nicole was commissioned by Marian St Theatre for Young People to write ‘The Red Dust’ (directed by artistic director Nate Gilkes) in collaboration with the Institute of Australian and Chinese Arts and Culture (IAC) at Western Sydney University, which had its world premiere at Ku-Ring-Gai Town Hall in July 2022. Most recently she presented ‘The Red Dust’ at the NSW state government Department of Communities and Justice Inaugural Community Engagement conference. Nicole was the Marian St Theatre for Young People’s Writer in Residence for 2021. ‘The Red Dust’ is slated for performance at Parramatta Riverside Theatres in 2027.

Nicole currently lives between the traditional lands of the Wallumedegal people of the Eora nation (Sydney) and the Lenape nation (New York) with her partner and dog.