Lee Lai

In 2025, Lai released Cannon, which in May 2026 became the first graphic novel to win the Stella Prize, with Lai being the first trans and non-binary person to win the prize.

• Notable Works — * Stone Fruit • Cannon • Born — 1993 • Birthplace — Melbourne, Australia

Lee Lai was born in 1993 in Melbourne and has a sister, with whom she is close.

Lai became interested in comics because of mild dyslexia, which made reading traditional novels difficult. Her short story comics have been published in The New Yorker, The Lifted Brow, Room Magazine, and Everyday Feminism. She published her first graphic novel, Stone Fruit, in 2021, which was shortlisted for the Stella Prize in Australia. It is also the first time that it has been won by a transgender person. Her 2025 graphic novel, Cannon, is about friendship. It won the Stella Prize in May 2026, becoming the first graphic novel to do so in the 14-year history of the prestigious award. It has also been shortlisted for the 2026 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards and the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction. As of 2026 she has been working for some years as a cartoonist, to provide a regular income to live on.

As of May 2026 Lai lives in Montreal. She moved there in 2016, in order to be able to make a living as a cartoonist and illustrator, owing to the larger market in North America. Lai is transgender, non-binary, and gay.

• Heartwood: Non-binary Tales of Sylvan Fantasy, edited by Joamette Gil (2019) • McSweeney's #62: The Queer Fiction Issue, edited by Patrick Cottrell, Dave Eggers (Editor), and Claire Boyle (Editor) (2020)