Anthony Lee was born and raised, and still lives, in New York City. He was educated in New York City, upstate New York, Dublin, Ireland, and Salamanca, Spain. He has been a waiter, bartender, bouncer, house painter, superintendent, art handler, and deli clerk, and has taught creative writing, rhetoric, and world literature at colleges around New York State. In 1997, he was awarded the Thayer Fellowship in the Arts.