Cynthia Chin-Lee was born and raised in Washington, D.C., in a family with four older siblings. Her father is a medical doctor and her mother an artist. Cynthia picked up a pen and began writing for fun when she was in the sixth grade. "I liked writing poetry and scribbling in my journal because I found it comforting and therapeutic. I still write for that reason and because I like playing with words."

Cynthia attended Harvard University where she studied East Asian Languages. She spent her junior year abroad at the Mandarin Training Center of National Taiwan Normal University. After graduating from Harvard magna cum laude, Cynthia accepted a graduate fellowship at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii, and studied at the University of Hawaii.

Cynthia began her writing career in the technical field for banks and high tech companies, but she has also written freelance articles for magazines and newspapers, as well as taught writing classes at community colleges and universities. She currently works as a publications manager at Oracle.

Cynthia's first book, Almond Cookies & Dragon Well Tea (Polychrome Publishing), is an autobiographical tale of friendship. She is also the author of A Is for Asia (Orchard Books), which Ruminator Review called one of the "Best 100 American Children's Books of the Century," and A Is for the Americas (Orchard Books), which was an NCSS/CBC Notable Children's Book in Social Studies in 2000.

Cynthia's first book with Charlesbridge was Amelia to Zora: Twenty-six Women Who Changed the World, illustrated by Megan Halsey and Sean Addy.

Cynthia Chin-Lee lives in Palo Alto, California, with her husband and two children.

Visit Cynthia online.

Read Cynthia's blog.

Visit Cynthia's Wikipedia page.

Read a Q & A with Cynthia Chin-Lee.

Books by Cynthia Chin-Lee