[close] Lisa Yee was born and raised near Los Angeles. As a kid, she loved reading, opening brand new boxes of cereal (to get the prize), and riding the teacups at Disneyland.

Lisa attended Brightwood Elementary School in Monterey Park, California where she once won an award for best decorated cake. However, Lisa cut the ribbon in half because her friend Linda had also worked on the cake, and they had agreed to split any prize they might win.

While at Alhambra High School, Lisa was on the debate team and president of the honor society. On occasion, she would ditch class and sneak off to the library. (Okay, so she never quite figured out the juvenile delinquent thing.) At the University of Southern California, she majored in English and Humanities, and she also took a bowling class.

Lisa has been an inventor, a hand model, and the associate director of a creative think tank. At Walt Disney World Lisa was a writer/producer and one time, when she was the only short person around, she got to be Mickey Mouse.

As co-owner and creative director of Magic Pencil Studios, a strategic creative company, she's written and directed creative projects for Fortune 500 clients, led creativity seminars for dairy farmers (moo), and been featured in the Wall Street Journal for her obsessive workaholic behavior. (She is now practically, totally cured of this.)

Lisa's been part of the Official Olympic Committee Torch Run Caravan (until the police requested that she leave), and she's been paid to eat chocolate. But what she likes doing most is writing. Her writing assignments have included labels for cans of refried beans and a speech for the President of the United States (The President's speechwriters rewrote the speech but they did include Lisa's immortal words, "Hello, Joan and Ben.")

Lisa has also penned her own newspaper column, written TV and radio commercials, menus that have been read by millions, jingles for waffles, and television specials for Disney.

Married to Scott, Lisa has two children and a Labradoodle. They live in South Pasadena, California. In her spare time, Lisa likes to read, make things out of junk, and consider taking a nap. Her HUGE collection of Winnie the-Poohs is on loan to the White River (Ontario) Winnie-the-Pooh Museum.

With the publication of Millicent Min, Girl Genius, Lisa has realized her lifelong dream of becoming an author. The winner of the prestigious Sid Fleischman Humor Award, there are over 400,000 copies of MILLIE in print. Lisa's second novel, Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time won the Chinese American Librarian Association Best Book of the Year award, and was named an American Library Association Notable Book.

Lisa was also named the 2007 Thurber House Children's Author-in-Residence. Her third novel, So Totally Emily Ebers came out in 2007 and so did Good Luck, Ivy, an American Girl historical novel.

In 2009, Lisa's first YA novel, Absolutely Maybe, debuted, as did Bobby vs. Girls (Accidentally), the first of her new chapter book series. She is currently working on the second "Bobby" book, and a spin-off of the Millicent Min trilogy. [close]