Kelsea Yu

Kelsea Yu is a Taiwanese Chinese American writer who lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and children. Whether through a speculative or real-world lens, her writing explores diaspora identity, twists on folklore, complicated interpersonal relationships, and characters who make unconventional choices.

Kelsea’s novella, Bound Feet, was nominated for a 2022 Shirley Jackson Award. Her debut novel, It’s Only a Game, won the 2025 Oregon Spirit Book Award for Young Adult Literature and a Children’s Book Council 2025 Young Adult Favorites Award. Her second novella, Demon Song, published in September 2025. Her debut adult novel, Stormraven, is forthcoming from Gallery Books and Titan Books in 2026. She has stories published in magazines such as Clarkesworld, Apex, Nightmare, PseudoPod, and Fantasy, and in various anthologies. Her nonfiction has been published in Nightmare, Apparition Lit, Sarah Gailey’s Personal Canons Cookbook, and elsewhere.

During Kelsea’s time as a first reader khoreo, the magazine received an Ignyte Award, two Hugo nominations, and a Locus nomination.