Mackenzi Lee (born Mackenzie Van Engelenhoven) is an American author of books for children and young adults. She writes both fiction and non-fiction about topics including sexuality and the role of women throughout history.Lee has a Master of Fine Arts from Simmons University in writing for children and young adults.
Lee's first book, 2015's This Monstrous Thing, was a retelling of Frankenstein and earned Lee the Susan P. Bloom Children's Book Discovery Award. In the promotional period for this book, she began posting on Twitter under the hashtag BygoneBadassBroads, sharing biographies of notable women beginning with Mary Shelley. This project grew in popularity, and in 2018, Lee published Bygone Badass Broads: 52 Forgotten Women Who Changed the World.
Her second novel, entitled The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue, was a New York Times Best Seller and earned a Stonewall Book Award for its portrayal of a bisexual young man in 18th-century Europe. This novel led to a series of books featuring the Montague siblings and a diverse set of characters whose struggles are presented in an era that didn't necessarily respect diversity.
