About
Ian Li is a Chinese-Canadian writer and Rhysling-nominated poet, who started writing in late 2023 after a lifetime of believing he could never be creative. Find his writing published or forthcoming in Nightmare Magazine, Orion’s Belt, Small Wonders, and elsewhere.
He graduated summa cum laude from Columbia University with a degree in Operations Research & Financial Engineering. He leads project teams as an economist and consultant, and has extensive expertise in antitrust, market microstructure, valuation, and large-scale data analysis.
He also enjoys developing games, building websites, and solving brain teasers.
Select Poetry
Visions of Manhattan, Eye to the Telescope
– nominated for the 2025 Rhysling Award
The Sail, Orion’s Belt
Traveling at Lightspeed is Easy, Returning to Earth is Hard, Small Wonders
Astrometric Love, Heartlines Spec
Distilling Emotion, Radon Journal
Old Brooklyn Magic, Nightmare Magazine, forthcoming
Select Fiction
The Memory Technician, Small Wonders
If I Have Defects, Am I Defective?, Short Édition
Light of My Life, Astrolabe
– nominated for Best Microfiction 2025
Have You Eaten Yet?, Worlds of Possibility ($)
– featured in Reactor’s “Must Read Short Speculative Fiction: February 2025“
The Halfling Tree, Solarpunk Magazine
A Fulfilling Life, Sci-Fi Shorts
Other Projects
Brain Easer
Curated collection containing hundreds of interesting and challenging puzzles, plus explanations of how I solved them.
Eltera
Web development, design, and digital marketing services.
Contact
I love to receive notes, but I’m not very active on social media, so you can send me a message via the form below.