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# Write Now with Stacey Lee
- URL: https://justincox.com/blog/2026/03/write-now-with-stacey-lee/
- Published: 2026-03-11T15:00:05.000Z
- Updated: 2026-03-11T15:00:05.000Z
- Description: Today's Write Now interview features Stacey Lee, author of HEIRESS OF NOWHERE.
- Author: Justin Cox
- Tags: Interview, #stacey-lee

## Who are you?

Stacey Lee, [writer](https://www.staceyhlee.com/?ref=justincox.com), Bay Area, California

## What do you write?

I’ve been writing since I could hold a pencil. Other kids played tag and dodgeball; I wrote stories. My sisters and I were the only Chinese kids at school, so I learned early what it feels like to stand at the edge of the circle. Composing stories in my head was a way to step out of the stare and into a world where I got to decide what was possible. I’m also a chronic observer — I watch people, try to make sense of why they do what they do — and that impulse translates naturally to fiction.

I do love what I do. Being paid to do something I would do anyway feels like a life-tilt I do not take for granted.

## Where do you write?

Mostly in my home office: a standing desk and a glorious second-hand extra-large monitor that has changed my life. But I migrate — desk to lounge chair to floor — because I can’t think in one posture. I keep a physical notebook for scene sketches and stray sparks. Writing something by hand organizes my thoughts in a way no app can.

## When do you write?

I don’t set word counts or timers. There is a constant tug between wanting the process to stay organic and knowing the electric bill exists. I do my best work at night, which means I send emails at hours that used to embarrass me. My publishing team is now fully acclimated to 1:47 a.m. subject lines.

![](https://justincox.com/content/images/2025/11/Heiress-of-Nowhere---Cover.jpg)

Photo courtesy Stacey Lee

## Why do you write?

Because story generates empathy, and we’re not exactly oversupplied. Stories let us connect sideways into lives we might never meet. In [HEIRESS OF NOWHERE](https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Heiress-of-Nowhere/Stacey-Lee/9781665978965?ref=justincox.com), Lucy begins as someone radically untethered — a girl of mysterious origins who literally floated into a stranger’s world — and then she is thrust into a position she never asked for when that stranger dies and leaves her everything. I return over and over to themes of hidden belonging, chosen family, and the shock of discovering you were woven in all along.

## How do you overcome writer's block?

I walk. That’s it. Movement kicks the gears. I start with the knot in my head and at some point, mid-lap, the knot loosens. When a solution lands, I text it to myself so it doesn’t evaporate.

## Bonus: What do you enjoy doing when not writing?

There’s a tiny fabric shop near me that opens twice a month and sells reclaimed remnants and furniture-store samples. I go to pet the fabric, help tidy the piles, and bring home pieces to sew into book sleeves I give out at events. I’m offering them with preorders of HEIRESS OF NOWHERE through my local indie, [The Linden Tree](https://www.lindentreebooks.com/heiress-of-nowhere.html?ref=justincox.com) — one sleeve per preorder while they last.

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*My thanks to Stacey Lee for today's interview.*