Lisa See

In her beloved New York Times bestsellers Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Peony in Love, and, most recently, Shanghai Girls, Lisa See brilliantly illuminated the potent bonds of mother love, romantic love, and love of country. She returns to these timeless themes, continuing the story of sisters Pearl and May from Shanghai Girls, in her newest novel, Dreams of Joy.

See has always been intrigued by stories that have been lost, forgotten, or deliberately covered up, whether in the past or happening right now in the world today. For Snow Flower, she traveled to a remote area of China – where she was told she was only the second foreigner ever to visit – to research the secret writing invented, used, and kept a secret by women for over a thousand years. Amy Tan called the novel "achingly beautiful, a marvel of imagination." Others agreed, and foreign-language rights for Snow Flower were sold to 39 countries. The novel also became a New York Times bestseller and a Booksense Number One Pick, and has won numerous awards domestically and internationally. In the summer of 2011, a film of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan will be released by Fox Searchlight.

She is also the author of On Gold Mountain: The One Hundred Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family, Dragon Bones, The Interior, and Flower Net. In addition to writing books, See was the Publishers Weekly West Coast Correspondent for 13 years. As a freelance journalist, her articles have appeared in Vogue, Self, The New York Times Book Review, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Washington Post Book World, and TV Guide.

See wrote the libretto for the Los Angeles Opera based on On Gold Mountain, which premiered in June 2000 at the Japan American Theatre followed by the Irvine Barclay Theatre. She also served as guest curator for an exhibit on the Chinese American experience for the Autry Museum of Western Heritage, which then traveled to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, in 2001. See then helped develop and curate the Family Discovery Gallery at the Autry Museum, an interactive space for children and their families that focuses on Lisa's bi-racial, bi-cultural family as seen through the eyes of her father as a seven-year-old boy living in 1930s Los Angeles.

See recently designed a walking tour of Los Angeles Chinatown and wrote the companion guidebook for Angels Walk L.A. to celebrate the opening of the MTA's new Chinatown metro station. She also curated the inaugural exhibition – a retrospective of artist Tyrus Wong – for the grand opening of the Chinese American Museum in Los Angeles in the winter of 2003. See serves as a Los Angeles City Commissioner on the El Pueblo de Los Angeles Monument Authority, and was honored as National Woman of the Year by the Organization of Chinese American Women in 2001. In Fall 2003, she was honored with the Chinese American Museum's History Makers Award.