American · b. 1990
Lee Mandelo is an American writer, editor, and scholar of queer and trans speculative fiction, based in Louisville, Kentucky. Raised in rural Bullitt County, he holds a PhD in Gender and Women's Studies from the University of Kentucky, where his research centers on queer theory, transmasculinity, and speculative genre fiction. His debut novel, Summer Sons (2021), a Southern Gothic ghost story set at Vanderbilt University, was named a Best Book of the year by NBC News and the New York Public Library. His subsequent novellas, Feed Them Silence (2023) and The Woods All Black (2024), earned nominations for the Nebula, World Fantasy, Hugo, and Goodreads Choice awards. Mandelo also edited the queer speculative fiction anthology Amplitudes: Stories of Queer Futurity and writes criticism for Reactor (formerly Tor.com) on gender, horror, and speculative fiction history.