Jennifer 8. Lee

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Jennifer 8. Lee bigraphy, stories - Chinese-American journalist

Jennifer 8. Lee : biography

March 15, 1976 –

Jennifer 8. Lee (Chinese name: ) (born March 15, 1976) is an American journalist who previously worked for The New York Times. She is also the co-founder and President of the literary studio Plympton.

Early life

Lee was born on March 15, 1976 in New York City, to immigrants from Kinmen, an island off the coast of China’s Fujian province. Lee was not given a middle name at birth, but instead chose "8." as a teenager.Lee, Jennifer 8. "" The Fortune Cookie Chronicles. March 17, 2008.Lee, Jennifer 8. "Yes, 8 is my middle name." Boston Globe. August 8, 1996. Page E1. For almost all Chinese, the number eight symbolizes prosperity and good luck. She graduated from Hunter College High School in 1994 and from Harvard College in 1999.

Career

At Harvard, Lee was the vice president of the Harvard Crimson. She interned at The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Newsday and The New York Times during college. Lee graduated in 1999 with a degree in applied mathematics and economics from Harvard. She joined the Times in 2001, one and a half years after graduating from Harvard.

Lee wrote a book about the history of Chinese food in the United States and around the world, titled The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, documenting the process on her blog. She reported the unlikely, but true, story of how a batch of fortune cookies created 110 Powerball lottery winners. To the surprise of many non-Chinese readers, she reported that fortune cookies are found in many countries but not China and that fortune cookies may have originated in Japan. Warner Books editor Jonathan Karp struck a deal with Lee to write a book about "how Chinese food is more all-American than apple pie.", October 13, 2008. Source: Xinhua/Translated by womenofchina.cn She appeared on the Colbert Report to promote the book. The book was #26 on the New York Times Best Seller list.

In December 2009, Lee accepted a buyout from the New York Times after the organization offered buyouts to all newsroom staff in October 2009 as part of an attempt to cut 100 newsroom positions due to budget cuts.

Lee has served on the advisory panel for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s "News Challenge", and has assisted the whistleblowing site WikiLeaks, dealing with the press and with social networking sites. Yahoo! News, 17 June 2010 She helped the organization with its April 2010 release of a video showing the July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike.Clint Hendler: Columbia Journalism Review April 05, 2010 Lee serves on the Board of Directors of the Center for Public Integrity, the Advisory Board of the Nieman Foundation, and the Asian American Writers’ Workshop.

In 2011, Lee and fellow writer Yael Goldstein Love founded a literary studio named Plympton, Inc.{} The studio focuses on publishing serialized fiction for digital platforms. Its first series launched in September 2012 as part of the Kindle Serials program.