Bios for Melissa Yi/Yuan-Innes

2-line bio (140 characters): Melissa Yi is an emergency physician with an active practice and an award-winning writing career. www.melissayuaninnes.com

Short Bio (50 words):

Melissa Yi is an emergency physician and award-winning writer. In her newest crime novel, WHITE LIGHTNING, Dr. Hope Sze’s romantic getaway at a Windsor Prohibition hotel morphs into a ghost-ridden historical crime scene with potential links to Al Capone.

Medium Bio (100 words):

Melissa Yi is an emergency physician and award-winning writer. In her latest crime novel, WHITE LIGHTNING, Dr. Hope Sze’s romantic getaway at a Windsor Prohibition hotel morphs into a ghost-ridden historical crime scene with potential links to Al Capone. Previous Hope Sze thrillers were recommended by The Globe and Mail, CBC Books, and The Next Chapter as one of the best Canadian suspense novels. Yi was shortlisted for the Derringer Award for the world’s best short mystery fiction. Under the name Melissa Yuan-Innes, she also writes medical humour and has won speculative fiction awards. http://www.melissayuaninnes.com/

Long Bio (400 words):

Melissa Yi is an emergency physician and award-winning writer. 

In her latest crime novel, WHITE LIGHTNING, Dr. Hope Sze’s romantic getaway at a Windsor Prohibition hotel morphs into a ghost-ridden historical crime scene with potential links to Al Capone.

The Globe and Mail hailed HUMAN REMAINS, the fifth Hope Sze thriller, as one of the best Canadian suspense novels to read at the cottage, “a scarier-than-ever murder mystery.” Human Remains was also the #1 mystery recommendation of CBC Books’ Holiday Gift Guide, followed by Maureen Jennings and Louise Penny.

TERMINALLY ILL, the third Hope Sze mystery, will take to Ottawa’s stage in June 2021. Originally designed as immersive theatre, it will be recreated as an online experience given pandemic restrictions.

Melissa was shortlisted for the Crime Writers of Canada/Arthur Ellis Award for the best crime story in Canada and a finalist for the Derringer Award, which is for the best short mystery fiction in the world. Her stories appear in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.

Melissa writes speculative fiction as Melissa Yuan-Innes. She won second place in Writers of the Future during medical school and appears in the Aurora Award-winning anthology The Dragon and the Stars.

Melissa writes articles for the Medical Post, penning the popular collection THE MOST UNFEELING DOCTOR IN THE WORLD AND OTHER TRUE TALES FROM THE EMERGENCY ROOM. She then wrote, produced, and starred in a one-woman show, “I Am the Most Unfeeling Doctor in the World,” which won Best of Fest in Ottawa and was a finalist for the Behind the Rideau Award.

Melissa appeared on CBC Radio’s The Current to discuss the Staunch Prize, a feminist thriller award for which she was longlisted in 2020.

Melissa is a fierce physician advocate, spearheading a COVID petition that gathered more than 200,000 signatures. She has since appeared on The National, Global News, CTV News, and in Maclean’s, The Globe and Mail, Elle Magazine, and many other sources.

Doctor-wise, Melissa has worked as far north as Ivujivik, Quebec (Inuktitut: ᐃᕗᔨᕕᒃ, north of 60; also the northernmost village in a Canadian province). Nowadays she runs codes in Eastern Ontario. She’s married to her high school sweetheart, with two loud and loveable children and a Rottweiler shepherd. She loves yoga, blading, intelligence, and random craziness. She hangs out on Facebook, Twitter (@dr_sassy), and on her website, http://www.melissayuaninnes.com/.

Speaker Introduction (200 words):

Fiction (Melissa Yi):

Melissa Yi (pronounced YEE), also known as Dr. Melissa Yuan-Innes (pronounced EWAN INN-nes), studied emergency medicine at McGill University in Montreal. She was so shocked by the patients crammed into the waiting area, and the examining rooms without running water, that she began to contemplate murder. And so she created Dr. Hope Sze (TSE), the resident who could save lives and fight crime.  She’ll do her best to entertain and edify you today. Let’s give a warm welcome to Melissa Yi.

Non-Fiction (Dr. Melissa Yuan-Innes):

Dr. Melissa Yuan-Innes (pronounced EWAN INN-nes) applied to medical school mostly because she wants to save lives, but also because she’s nosy. Medicine is a fascinating and frustrating window into other people’s lives.  Her essay collection, THE MOST UNFEELING DOCTOR IN THE WORLD AND OTHER TRUE TALES FROM THE EMERGENCY ROOM, has also become a Fringe play that won Best of Fest. Her award-winning fiction, including the internationally acclaimed Hope Sze medical crime series, has been transformed into audio books and immersive theatre. Please give a warm welcome to Melissa Yuan-Innes (pronounced EWAN INN-nes).

Medical (Dr. Melissa Yuan-Innes):

Dr. Melissa Yuan-Innes (pronounced EWAN INN-nes), M.D., CCFP-EM, M.O.T., is an emergency physician at the Glengarry Memorial Hospital. She writes articles for the Medical Post. Her latest crime novel, WHITE LIGHTNING, covers everything from Al Capone to Comic-Con. The M.O.T. stands for Mother Of Two. Please give a warm welcome to Melissa Yuan-Innes (pronounced EWAN INN-nes).

5 Fun Facts You Didn’t Know About Me:

1. I’ve tried throat-singing in Puvirnituk, Nunavik, Quebec.

2. I also learned karate and ice-fished in Puvirnituk. Good times.

3. I tried contemporary dance and waacking.

4. I swam beside sea lions in the Galapagos.

5. I missed an IED outside the pyramids of Giza partly because I took a later flight so as not to miss my son’s birthday. I joined my tour group in time to stand outside King Tut’s tomb and marvel at the Temple of Hatshepsut.