# Lee Murray (writer)

Lee Murray (born 1965) ONZM is a New Zealand science fiction, fantasy, and horror writer and editor. She is a third generation Chinese New Zealander who has written over forty works. She is a five-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award and a twelve-time winner of the Sir Julius Vogel Award. She is most noted for her Taine McKenna military thrillers, and supernatural crime-noir series The Path of Ra. In 2025 Murray was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literature, particularly speculative literature.

## Biography

Murray was born in Putāruru, Waikato. She previously worked as a scientist and an advisor for the OECD. She is the co-founder of Young New Zealand Writers with Piper Mejia, an organization which has provided development and publishing opportunities for New Zealand school students. She suffers from anxiety and depression. She currently lives in Tauranga.

## Awards

Her anthologies Hellhole: An Anthology of Subterranean Terror and Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women won the Bram Stoker Award for "Superior Achievement in an Anthology" in 2018 and 2020 respectively, while her collection Grotesque: Monster Stories won the "Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection " category in 2020. Other works have won the Australian Shadows and Sir Julius Vogel awards. She was the winner of the 2019 Bram Stoker Mentor of the year award. She is a professional member of the Horror Writers Association, Australian Horror Writers Association, and the New Zealand Society of Authors. In 2020 she was awarded the New Zealand Society of Authors Honorary Literary Fellowship. In 2021 she was awarded the Grimshaw Sargeson 2021 Fellowship. She won the NZSA Laura Solomon Cuba Press Prize 2023 with her manuscript Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud.
In the 2025 New Year Honours, Murray was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literature, particularly speculative literature.

### Works as author

| Award | Year | Category | Recipient(s) | Result |
| Bram Stoker Award | 2018 | Superior Achievement in Short Fiction | "Dead End Town" | Nominee |
| Bram Stoker | 2019 | Superior Achievement in a Novel | Into the Ashes | Nominee |
| Bram Stoker | 2020 | Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection | Grotesque: Monster Stories (Things in the Well) | Winner |
| Bram Stoker | 2021 | Superior Achievement in Short Fiction | Permanent Damage | Winner |
| Bram Stoker | 2021 | Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection | Tortured Willows: Bent. Bowed. Unbroken' by Christina Sng, Angela Yuriko Smith, Lee Murray & Geneve Flynn' | Winner |
| Bram Stoker | 2022 | Superior Achievement in Short Non-Fiction | I Don’t Read Horror (& Other Weird Tales) | Winner |
| Bram Stoker | 2023 | Superior Achievement in Long Fiction | Despatches | Nominee |
| Sir Julius Vogel | 2012 | Best Youth Novel | Battle of the Birds | Winner |
| Sir Julius Vogel | 2013 | Best Short Story | Hope is the thing with feathers | Winner |
| Sir Julius Vogel | 2014 | Best Novella | Cave Fever | Winner |
| Sir Julius Vogel | 2015 | Best Short Story | Inside Ferndale | Winner |
| Sir Julius Vogel | 2016 | Best Short Story | The Thief's Tale | Winner |
| Sir Julius Vogel | 2017 | Best Novel: Into the Mist | Into the Mist | Winner |
| Sir Julius Vogel | 2017 | Services To Science Fiction, Fantasy And Horror | | Winner |
| Sir Julius Vogel | 2018 | Best Novel | Hounds of the Underworld | Winner |
| Sir Julius Vogel | 2019 | Best Novel | Into the Sounds | Winner |

### Works as editor

| Award | Year | Category | Recipient(s) | Result |
| Bram Stoker | 2018 | Superior Achievement in an Anthology | Hellhole: An Anthology of Subterranean Terror | Nominee |
| Bram Stoker | 2020 | Superior Achievement in an Anthology | Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women | Winner |
| Sir Julius Vogel | 2014 | Best Collected Work | Baby Teeth: Bite-sized Tales of Terror | Winner |
| Sir Julius Vogel | 2017 | Best Collected Work | At the Edge | Winner |
| Australian Shadow | 2018 | Edited Work | Hellhole: An Anthology of Subterranean Terror | Winner |
| Aurealis | 2020 | Best Anthology | Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women | Nominee |
| Australian Shadow | 2020 | Edited Work | Midnight Echo #15 | Winner |