ED BOK LEE is the author of Real Karaoke People: Poems & Prose, winner of a PEN/Beyond Margins Award, an Asian American Literary Award (Members' Choice), an Urban Griots Best Book Award, and in 2007 a national poetry bestseller.

The son of Korean emigrants -- his mother from what has since become the Communist North, his father from the South -- he attended kindergarten in South Korea, and grew up in North Dakota and Minnesota.

After studying Russian and Central Asian languages and literatures at the Universities of Minnesota, Kazakh State--Almaty, and California--Berkeley, he received an MFA in Creative Writing from Brown University.

Lee has recited his poetry across the U.S., Europe, and Asia, as well as for radio and TV, including MTV.