Lee Murray

INFO

Name	Lee Murray (she/her)
Born	1965
Country of Birth	Aotearoa
Place of Residence	Tauranga
Artform	Literature
Decades Active	2000s, 2010s, 2020s

ABOUT

Lee Murray is an author and editor of horror and speculative fiction, and is often referred to as “NZ’s Stephen King”. Her extensive body of work spans poetry to essays to screenplays with over forty books published, and she has received awards both nationally and internationally. She was the first New Zealander to win the Shirley Jackson Award in 2020, and the first New Zealander of Asian descent to be awarded the New Zealand Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement in Fiction (2024). In 2025, Lee was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literature, and was also appointed a judge of the 2025 World Fantasy Awards — only the second New Zealander to have held this role.

Born in Putāruru, Waikato, as a third-generation Chinese New Zealander, Murray began her career in scientific research; she spent several years working overseas in scientific policy, including as New Zealand energy advisor to the OECD in France. After her two children started school, Murray began taking writing classes at NorthTec: Tai Tokerau Wānanga — a career shift that was not entirely surprising: “I’ve always written, journaled, blogged (before there was such a thing as blogging), scribbling ideas in notebooks as far back as I can remember.”

Murray’s first book, Battle of the Birds (Taramea Publishing, 2011), was a young adult speculative fiction novel that won both The Dominion Post’s Best Books of 2011 and the 2012 Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Youth Novel. Covering time travel, New Zealand ecology and Māori mythology, the book introduced Murray’s signature blend of Aotearoa landscape and history, cultural mythology, and speculative fiction elements. She went on to publish a range of fiction works aimed at both children and adult audiences.

In 2016, Murray released Into the Mist — the first book in her Taine McKenna military thriller series. Described as “a tension-packed expedition into primordial terror’”, the series places ancient folklore and monsters against a backdrop of rich New Zealand flora. Murray is also noted for her collaborative works, particularly the award-winning futuristic noir series, The Path of Ra (2017–2020), co-authored with Dan Rabarts. With a setting that is “firmly rooted in New Zealand’s beautifully evocative Māori mythology and legend”, the series solidified Murray’s focus on using New Zealand history, folklore and nature within speculative fiction and horror frameworks.

Murray is deeply committed to Asian representation in both her writing and editorial practice. Horror is a way of embodying hope for her, as well as addressing topics such as sexism and racism. Murray often attributes her interest in horror to the personal experiences of discrimination and social injustice she faced while growing up in New Zealand: “[horror stories] are about real-life things that frighten us…fears about others and otherness, persecution and marginalisation”. Murray’s editorial work on the Southeast Asian horror anthology, Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women (2020) emphasises her commitment to the horror genre as a way to platform traditionally untold stories and subvert stereotypes. This publication, together with Tortured Willows (Yuriko Publishing, 2021) — a collaborative poetry collection that explores Southeast Asian women and feelings of otherness — laid the foundation for her solo collection Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud (The Cuba Press, 2024)

Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud was the winner of the NZSA Laura Solomon Cuba Press Prize in 2023, and is described as an “an audacious blend” of poetry, prose and biography. Murray weaves Chinese migrant history with supernatural horrors, confronting the terrifying realities of migration, diaspora, and generational trauma. NZBooklovers comments that the “juxtaposition of biography and mythology, of the human and the supernatural, challenges the reader to confront the silences and the forgotten narratives that haunt our collective consciousness.”

Mentorship and youth development are also important facets of Murray’s practice. As the winner of the 2019 International Horror Writers Association Mentor of the Year Award, Murray has spoken actively on the mentor-mentee relationship and providing guidance for emerging writers. In 2011 Lee co-founded the Young New Zealand Writers programme with the aim of providing mentorship, guidance and publishing opportunities for New Zealand youth. Despite working with over 200 schools to implement writing competitions, annual workshops and conferences, and youth publications, the programme ultimately disbanded in February 2023 due to concern for student health during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Murray’s first foray into film was as co-screenwriter for Grafted (2024) — a New Zealand body-horror feature film that premiered at Whānau Mārama New Zealand International Film Festival in August 2024.