Born in Taipei, Chih-Ying Lay came to Canada in 2008 to obtain his Ph.D. in Microbiology at McGill University. His first collection, published in Taiwan under the title The Escapist (2008), includes stories awarded the Formosa Literature Prize in 2005 and the Liberty Times Literature Prize in 2006. He has since published a novel, The Ideal Family (2012), and another collection of short fiction, The Comic Lives of Losers (2016). A guest broadcaster both in Taiwan (2007) and for Radio Canada International in Montreal (2016), he sings in Ensemble Sainte-Anne Singers and Musica Orbium and works as a senior research scientist in Montreal.