Kailee Pedersen

The Minimalist For fans of Tár and The Piano Teacher, this gruesome and unsettling psychological drama is a darkly lucid portrait of a classical composer’s descent into ...

THE MINIMALIST (gruesome classical music psychological horror w/ queer, Jewish, & AAPI themes) releases Aug 18th!

us.macmillan.com/books/978125...

I also do want to point out that the art form (and classical music as a whole) have a long history of queer, POC, and Jewish performers, conductors, and composers and I’m committed to furthering the legacy of their music.

I understand the critique of access to the arts and how opera can be appear insular or only for the wealthy. I would love to see opera become more accessible to the community at large and local opera scenes thrive outside of major cities.

...that it presents the human voice in such a spectacular way; that it can be so viscerally compelling in its raw emotionality; that sitting in the dark and watching the curtain rise, you are invited into a world of passion, desire, brutality, hidden longing…

As an opera singer who will never be particularly well-known nor make any money off of my singing, I do think there is something very special about opera...

dang we'd love to have you! I'll be visiting Boston MA, Doylestown PA, and Houston TX later this year if you're anywhere near those!

VOICES BIPOC Adoptees Author Reading (3rd Annual). Featuring 5 authors (Leah Altman, KE Garland, Matan Gold, Dani Janae, and Kailee Pedersen) on April 23, 7-9pm. Alberta Abbey, Portland OR. Get tickets at bipocadoptees.org/events

I can't wait to share the stage with four other amazing adoptee authors at the VOICES BIPOC Adoptees Author Reading! Come see us on April 23rd 7-9pm at Alberta Abbey (Portland, OR).🥚

Register here: www.bipocadoptees.org/event/voices...

🥚

Feeling exceedingly lucky in my book choices lately, with three absolute winners in a row. Sacrificial Animals by @kaileepedersen.bsky.social, A Master of Djinn by @pdjeliclark.bsky.social, and tonight I just finished Black River Orchard by @chuckwendig.bsky.social.

The Author's Foundation - 2026 Grantee for HELLS CANYON

So excited to share that I've been awarded a grant from The Authors' Foundation. I'm immensely grateful for their support of HELLS CANYON, my upcoming brutal & unflinching Western charting three generations of a Chinese American family on the frontier.

@societyofauthors.bsky.social #SoAGrants

This seems to be present, to some degree, in works like FRANKENSTEIN and WUTHERING HEIGHTS, but also in more recent films like THE OMEN and ORPHAN. (2/2)

As an adoptee, I’ve always been interested in the anxieties surrounding “unnatural” reproduction in horror — in which the presence of a fostered, adopted, or even monstrously “created” child within the family leads to ruin and destruction. (1/2)

Thank you so much, glad you enjoyed & hope you like the next one 😊

@kaileepedersen.bsky.social I just finished Sacrificial Animals and found it fantastic. I can’t believe that’s your debut! I look forward to reading The Minimalist.

Tonight’s the night!

Torn Asunder | Oscar Lopez As Guatemala and El Salvador were being torn apart by violent US-backed regimes, tens of thousands of children—many of them war orphans, others forcibly taken from their birth parents—were being adopt...

🥚 NY Review of Books reviews two new titles about the tens of thousands of children—many forcibly taken from their birth parents—who were adopted overseas from Guatemala and El Salvador as a direct result of U.S.-backed violence.

Average price tag: $30K per kid

www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

Author list for the Spooktastic Book Fair, listing dozens of authors, several publishers, and other guests for the 2026 event.

So excited for this event in the fall with an incredible lineup of amazing authors! Thank you to the Spooktastic Book Fair and Roundhead Brewing for having me!

Stay tuned for more info about some special & spooky music I'll be performing while there 😊

Just found out a friend of mine, an Iranian adoptee, has been given notice by DHS to report to court to justify her stay in the states.

She's lived here all her life, but her parents never finalized her citizenship, so she's targeted.

I hate this country.

Pass the Adoptee Citizenship Act! 🥚🤬🤬

🥚 for the adoptee feed -- if anyone is interested in a novel with a queer Asian adoptee main character & themes of mental illness, classical music, Jewish & queer composers of the twentieth century, and identity 🙂

Goodreads Giveaway for Kailee Pedersen's THE MINIMALIST Cover features an Asian woman's face inside a slashed-into outline of a piano. February 9 to March 6

We're giving away 30 early copies of THE MINIMALIST on Goodreads!

For fans of Tár and The Piano Teacher, THE MINIMALIST is a gruesome and darkly lucid portrait of a classical composer’s descent into madness.

Enter here: www.goodreads.com/giveaway/ent...

@stmartinspress.bsky.social

A promotional opera poster featuring a painting of a nobleman surrounded by the fires of hell. New York Opera Forum presents Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart In concert, Friday, February 13th at 7pm Donna Anna: Lauren Green Donna Elvira: Evelyn Thatcher Zerlina: Kailee Pedersen Don Giovanni: Robert Garner Don Ottavio: Daniel Kamelic Leporello: Jay Stephenson Masetto: Jay Gould Commendatore: Jay Gould Music director & pianist: Richard Nechamkin Tickets $25: Zelle, Venmo, or at the door Includes dessert, tea, and coffee Plainfield Masonic Temple - Theatre 2nd Floor 105 East 7th Street, Plainfield, New Jersey 07060 Parking available in lot or across street on 7th street Presented by Jerusalem Lodge - David Palladino-Sinclair (732)-718-4934

Looking to enjoy and/or ruin Valentine's Day weekend with a darkly thrilling opera involving (200-year-old spoiler alert) seduction, murder, talking statues, and a man getting dragged to hell? Come see me and my wonderfully talented friends in Don Giovanni this Friday! 😈🎵

Episode 317 of Adoptees On: Kailee Pedersen Today's guest is the multifaceted Kailee Pedersen: from software engineer to opera singer to novelist! Kailee shares about being adopted from China, growing up in Nebraska, navigating racial isolation and the complexities of searching for family across borders and systems. We also talk about her debut gothic horror novel Sacrificial Animals - how family legacy and intergenerational trauma show up on the page - and her upcoming novel The Minimalist, which features adoptee characters. There is one brief mention of suicide in our conversation. Hosted by Haley Radke adopteeson.com

"It's hard for me to have a firm grasp on how I feel about China as like this faceless entity or country that I have never returned to ... perhaps never will." - Kailee Pedersen (Episode 317, Adoptees On)

Episode 317 of Adoptees On (Kailee Pedersen) Recommended Resources: Sacrificial Animals by Kailee Pedersen and The Language of Blood by Jane Jeong Trenka

Had a really wonderful conversation with Haley Radke of @adopteeson.bsky.social about family, inheritance, SACRIFICIAL ANIMALS, Nebraska farm life, opera, and storytelling through an adoptee perspective in my upcoming novel THE MINIMALIST.

Listen here: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/k... 🥚

AND @catrionaward.bsky.social
@gwendolynkiste.bsky.social
@tkingfisher.com
@ceejthemoment.bsky.social
@cynthiapelayo.bsky.social
@paultremblay.bsky.social
@cgolden.bsky.social
@kaileepedersen.bsky.social
@adamcesare.bsky.social
@joshmalerman.bsky.social
@almakatsu.bsky.social

26 Upcoming Horror Books We Can’t Wait to Read In 2026 If you read new horror fiction, then you know 2025 was a great year for scary books, and 2026 is already promising even more frightening reads. Some of the biggest names in horror will be back with ne...

What a spectacular list! @bloody-disgusting.com's list of most anticipated horror novels! @claymcleod.bsky.social @natcassidy.bsky.social @ericlarocca.bsky.social @rachelharrison.bsky.social @danielkraus.com @ronaldmalfi.bsky.social @haileypiperfights.bsky.social

tinyurl.com/ydm8ydek

26 Upcoming Horror Books We Can't Wait to Read In 2026 by Matthew Jackson for Bloody Disgusting

The Minimalist by Kailee Pedersen - August 18 Kailee Pedersen’s novel Sacrificial Animals is one of the best debut works of horror I’ve read in the past decade, which means her follow-up is essential reading. Drawing on Pedersen’s own experiences in the world of classical music, The Minimalist follows the apprentice to a beloved composer who, upon his sudden death, inherits the manuscript of his great unfinished work. Nightmares ensue, and while I don’t yet know what those nightmares are, I can’t wait to find out.

"Essential reading." Thank you to @awalrusdarkly.bsky.social and @bloody-disgusting.com for including THE MINIMALIST in this most anticipated round up for 2026! 🎶🩸

bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3...

@stmartinspress.bsky.social

🥚 for the adoptee feed!

My current project doesn’t explicitly deal with the modern adoption industry but has themes of identity, patrimony, inheritance, and parental loss.

Hope I can share more soon & I’m always proud to see my adoptee identity in my bio 🙂

TY TY!!! while atm there aren’t any speculative elements I can promise at least one shootout, a railroad strike, a stagecoach robbery/rescue, way more about cattle ranching than anybody needs to know, forbidden romance(s), He’s A 10 But He’s From Nebraska And An Outlaw, + one Extremely Angry bull

Issues related to her queer identity and Asian American heritage are central to her literary work. Her second novel, The Minimalist, will be published by St. Martin’s in 2026. (4/4)

She is the author of the poetry collection Pastorale (Burnside Review Press, 2025) and the novel Sacrificial Animals (St. Martin’s, 2024), which was selected as one of the New York Public Library's best books of 2024 and was a finalist in the horror category of the 2025 Libby Book Awards. (3/4)

Translation:

Kailee Pedersen is an American author and poet. Adopted in 1996 from Nanning, China, she grew up in Nebraska and is now based in New York City, where she also works as a software engineer and opera singer. (2/4)