A guest post for The Future Fire, March 2025

Once upon a time, fantastical epics were written in poetry: the Epic of Gilgamesh (about four thousand years old), the Iliad (about three thousand years old), the Mahabharata (about two thousand years old), Beowulf (a mere thousand years old). Nowadays, however, we expect our epic fantasy in prose, often as a series of hefty volumes. But in 2013, I started writing a group of poems that grew into my own epic fantasy, The Sign of the Dragon, which tells the story of King Xau, chosen by a dragon to be king.

Read the whole essay.

A review of How to Navigate Our Universe by The Sciku Project, January 2025

“It’s safe to say that I’m a fan of poet and author Mary Soon Lee. I adored Elemental Haiku, her series of haiku based on each element of the period table. I also really enjoyed The Sign of the Dragon, a stunning epic fantasy poem sequence that’s well worth seeking out (and has recently been published in an illustrated version). And my three-part interview with her was fascinating, leading to a continuing and delightful sporadic correspondence over the past few years. So, please take this review of her 2023 collection of poetry How To Navigate Our Universe with a pinch of salt…. Salted or not, How To Navigate Our Universe is a joy.”

Read the whole review.

Brandon O’Brien, Poet Laureate for the upcoming Seattle Worldcon, chatted with me about speculative poetry, for his Con-Verse blog for Worldcon.

You can read the interview here.

Penumbric interview, April 2024

Jeff Georgeson of Penumbric kindly interviewed me, posing questions about cultural influences, The Sign of the Dragon, How to Navigate Our Universe, Zoom, and more.

Read the whole interview.

Strange Horizons review of How to Navigate Our Universe by Vivian Wagner, February 2024.

“How to Navigate Our Universe is a collection of speculative poetry by Mary Soon Lee which plays with the notion that planets might have personalities, moons might have jealousies, and the universe itself might be understood by examining its neighborhoods….”

Read Vivian Wagner’s whole review.