Shanlee is a fiction writer from the Midwest. She was born and raised in Decatur, IL then lived in Minneapolis for several years before transferring to the South. The American Midwestern identity/neuroticism/complex is central to her writing. She is enamored with the short story form and its fertile ground for experimentation.  Authors influential to her work include Flannery O’Connor, Lorrie Moore, Shirley Jackson, John Cheever, Raymond Carver, and Sheila Heti.