I’m a writer.

Here’s a flattering profile of me in T Magazine Australia.

My first novel, The Work, will be published in April. My other books are all non-fiction and include Who Gets to be Smart (2021), Eggshell Skull (2018), and Beauty (2019).

I’ve written investigative journalism, opinion, short fiction, essays, and arts criticism.

I run a weekly newsletter. Subscribe to News & Reviews here.

I’m qualified to practice law (but do not) and have published peer-reviewed research. I’m currently doing a PhD in law at the University of Sydney where I also lecture in media law. I was the 2020 Copyright Agency x UTS Writer-in-Residence.

Together with the Women’s Justice Network I founded the ‘Freadom Inside’ project that gets books to women incarcerated in NSW. We’re now crowdfunding to pay women with lived experience to run book club programs for those still inside. Support them here.

Sometimes I give lectures, keynotes, and other kinds of speeches.

I live and work on Gadigal land in Sydney, Australia.

The Work

My debut novel, The Work, will be published on 3 April 2024.

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“Well this is annoying. Bri Lee—whose nonfiction debut Eggshell Skull revealed a fine mind and a stout heart—turns out to be a brilliant novelist as well. This novel isn’t just good; it’s superb. Assured, and powerful, and intelligent, and very, VERY hard to put down. Bri Lee has an established knack of articulating human confusion, pain and the cracks that open up in the systems we design to govern ourselves. And in The Work, she brings all her thrilling intelligence and her journalist’s eye to the art world, and its awkward historic dicta about who gets to make art, and how badly they can behave while they’re making it. Also it’s a love story. And a story about growing up in the country and moving to the city, observed with a perfect degree of spiky tenderness. I consumed it in a passion.”
Annabel Crabb

“like having a wine with mates after a long week and chatting about all the things that make you think—with cute, fun bits as well.”

Smart takes on books, news, and culture. Straight from Bri's desk in Sydney to your inbox each Wednesday at 5pm, plus a monthly magazine special edition full of her sexy friends.

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