About
Ian Li is a Chinese-Canadian writer and 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, Small Wonders, Strange Horizons, and many other venues.
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
Old Brooklyn Magic, Nightmare Magazine
Visions of Manhattan, Eye to the Telescope
- 2025 Rhysling Award finalist
The Sail, Orion’s Belt
Traveling at Lightspeed is Easy, Returning to Earth is Hard, Small Wonders
Astrometric Love, Heartlines Spec
not tied down, Strange Horizons, forthcoming
Select Short Stories
The Memory Technician, Small Wonders
- featured in Charles Payseur’s Diabolical Plots, GigaNotoSaurus and Small Wonders: Reviews
- featured in Myna Chang’s Flash Roundup * March 2025
Light of My Life, Astrolabe
- nominated for Best Microfiction 2025
Have You Eaten Yet?, Worlds of Possibility ($)
- featured in Alex Brown’s Must Read Short Speculative Fiction: February 2025
The Drowned, Apex Pocket Hell Microfiction Contest, 1st place
If I Have Defects, Am I Defective?, Short Édition
Poured from the Stars, Saros SF
Other Projects
Brain Easer
Curated collection of 200+ interesting and challenging puzzles, with detailed 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.