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About Lee

Lee Murray is a multi-award-winning author-editor, essayist, poet, and screenwriter from Aotearoa-New Zealand. A USA Today Bestselling author, Shirley Jackson and five-time Bram Stoker Awards® winner, she is a New Zealand Prime Minister's Award-winner for Literary Achievement in Fiction. Lee lives in the sunny Bay of Plenty with her well-behaved family and a naughty dog.

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“Lee Murray is synonymous with Kiwi horror.” —Alan Baxter, award-winning author of The Gulp and Sallow Bend. 

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“Horror author Lee Murray is New Zealand's Stephen King .” —NZ Woman's Weekly

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“Lee Murray is a powerful voice in horror.” —Interstellar Flight Magazine

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 “A feminist warrior of our time.” —Happy Goat Horror​

In July 2024, Lee was listed in the Listener's Quiet achievers, rebels, and dreamers: 50 of New Zealand's most inspiring people.

Lee is represented by Becky LeJeune of Bond Literary Agency. 

Distinctions
  • New Zealand Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement in Fiction, 2023
  • Grimshaw Sargeson Fellow, 2021
  • Honorary Literary Fellow of the New Zealand Society of Authors, Waitangi Day Honours, 2020
  • Horror Writers Association Mentor of the Year 2019
  • Life Member of Tauranga Writers, New Zealand's longest standing writing group, 2020
  • Life Member of SpecFicNZ (Speculative Fiction Writers of New Zealand), 2018

  • Co-founder and facilitator for youngNZwriters (2012-2022)

  • Co-founder Wright-Murray Residency for Speculative Fiction Writers

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Current Roles

  • Co-Chair HWA Wellness Committee

  • Mentor/assessor HWA, NZSA, SpecFicNZ

Photo: Paul Mannering

​Awards

International Bram Stoker Award

  • 2023 nominee for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction for Despatches (PS Publishing)

  • 2023 nominee for Superior Achievement in Long Non-Fiction for Unquiet Spirits: Essays by Asian Women in Horror, with Angela Yuriko Smith

  • 2023 nominee for Superior Achievement in short Non-Fiction for "Displaced Spirits: Ghosts of the Diaspora" in Unquiet Spirits (Black Spot Books)

  • 2022 WINNER for Superior Achievement in Short Non-Fiction for "I Don't Read Horror (& Other Weird Tales)" (Interstellar Flight Magazine)

  • 2021 WINNER for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction for Permanent Damage in Attack from the 80s (Eugene Johnson ed.)

  • 2021 WINNER for Tortured Willows: Bent, Bowed, Unbroken, with Angela Yuriko Smith, Geneve Flynn, and Christina Sng

  • 2020 WINNER for Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection for Grotesque: Monster Stories (Things in the Well)

  • 2020 WINNER for Superior Achievement in an Anthology for Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women (Omnium Gatherum Media

  • 2019 nominee for Superior Achievement in a Novel for Into the Ashes (Severed Press)

  • 2018 nominee for Superior Achievement in an Anthology for Hellhole: An Anthology of Subterranean Terror

  • 2018 nominee for Superior Achievement in a Short Story for Dead End Town in Cthulhu Deep Down Under II (Proposch, Sequeira and Stevens eds)

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Shirley Jackson Award

  • 2020 WINNER for Best Anthology for Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women

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NZSA Laura Solomon Cuba Press Prize

  • 2023 WINNER for prose-poetry collection Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud

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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Society Doylean Honoree for Excellence in Fiction and Poetry

  • 2024 Winner for "Maoriland Blue" in The Terror of Blue John Gap Project (Nancy Holder & Margie Deck editors)

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Foreword Indie Awards

  • 2023 Finalist for Unquiet Spirits: Essays by Asian Women in Horror

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Book Fest Awards

  • 2024 WINNER for Poetry Anthologies and Collections for Under Her Eye (Black Spot Books)

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Sir Julius Vogel Awards

  • Best Collected Work for Remains to be Told Dark Tales of Aotearoa, 2023

  • Best Novel for Into the Sounds, 2019

  • Best Novel for Hounds of the Underworld with Dan Rabarts, 2018

  • Best Novel for Into the Mist, 2017

  • Best Collected Work for Te Korero Ahi Ka, with Grace Bridges and Aaron Compton, 2019

  • Best Collected Work for At the Edge with Dan Rabarts, 2017

  • Service to Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror, Lee Murray, 2017

  • Best Short Story for The Thief’s Tale, 2016

  • Best Short Story for Inside Ferndale, 2015

  • Best Novella/Novelette for Cave Fever, in Regeneration, 2014

  • Best Collected Work for Baby Teeth with Dan Rabarts, 2014

  • Best Short Story for Hope is the Thing With Feathers 2013

  • Best Youth Novel for Battle of the Birds, 2012

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Australasian Shadows Awards

  • Best Poetry for Cheongsam in Tortured Willows: Bent, Bowed, Unbroken (Yuriko Publishing)

  • Best Edited Work for Hellhole: An Anthology of Subterranean Horror, 2019

  • Best Edited Work for Baby Teeth with Dan Rabarts, 2014

  • Best Edited Work for Midnight Echo #15, 2020

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Skoutz Award for Horror Fiction, 2021 (Germany)

  • Finalist for Beutezeit (German translation of Into the Mist)​

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British Fantasy Award, 2021

  • Finalist for Best Anthology for Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women

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Aurealis Award, 2021

  • Finalist for Best Anthology for Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women

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International Imadjinn Awards, 2021

  • Finalist for Fiction Collection for Grotesque: Monster Stories

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Ladies of Horror Fiction Award, 2021

  • Finalist for Best Short Story for Heart Music in Grotesque: Monster Stories

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Lit Retreat

  • Editor of the Year 2021

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Poetry Awards​

  • Elgin-nominated poet for Tortured Willows, 2021, 2nd-place winner

  • Rhysling-nominated poet, short and long forms, 2021, for 'orchid moon', 'exquisite' and 'Interview with a Goddess'. Honorable Mention for 'exquisite', and  2022 for 'Status Transcript:'

  • Pushcart-nominated poet, 2021

  • Dwarf Star-nominated poet with Honorable Mention for 'fury'. 

  • Ladies of Horror Fiction-nominated poet for Tortured Willows, 2021

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Fellowships

  • Grimshaw Sargeson Fellowship Finalist, 2016, Winner 2021

  • Honorary Literary Fellow of the NZSA, 2020

  • Beatson Fellowship Finalist 2020, 2024

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Memberships

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