Born June 14, 1948 in San Francisco, California, Yep was the son of Thomas Gim Yep and Franche Lee Yep. Franche Lee, her family's youngest child, was born in Ohio and raised in West Virginia where her family owned a Chinese laundry. Yep's father, Thomas, was born in China and came to America at the age of ten where he lived, not in Chinatown, but with an Irish friend in a white neighborhood. After troubling times during the Depression, he was able to open a grocery store in an African-American neighborhood. Growing up in San Francisco, Yep felt alienated. He was in his own words his neighborhood's "all-purpose Asian" and did not feel he had a culture of his own. Joanne Ryder, a children's book author, and Yep met and became friends during college while she was his editor. They later married and now live in San Francisco. Although not living in Chinatown, Yep commuted to a parochial bilingual school there. Other students at the school, according to Yep, labeled him a "dumbbell Chinese" because he spoke only English. During high school he faced the white American culture for the first time. However, it was while attending high school that he started writing for a science fiction magazine, being paid one cent a word for his efforts. After two years at Marquette University, Yep transferred to the University of California at Santa Cruz where he graduated in 1970 with a B.A. He continued on to earn a Ph.D. in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1975. Today as well as writing, he has taught writing and Asian American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and Santa Barbara.
Series
Books
The Amah
1999
The Lost Garden
1991
Auntie Tiger
2008
City of Ice
2011
Dragon Steel
1985
Tongues of Jade
1991
Ribbons
1996
A Dragon's Guide to the Care and Feeding of Humans
2015
Bravo, Mia!
2008
Sweetwater
1973
The Imp That Ate My Homework
1998
Dragonwings
1975
Later, Gator
1900
Isabelle
2014
The Boy Who Swallowed Snakes
1994
Spring Pearl
The Last Flower
2003
To the Stars, Isabelle
2014
The Case of the Goblin Pearls
1997
The Magic Paintbrush
2000
Angelfish
2001
The Ghost Fox
1994
Lady of Ch'iao Kuo
Warrior of the South, Southern China, A.D. 531
2001
Seademons
1977
Tiger Magic
2006
Thief of Hearts
1995
The Earth Dragon Awakes
The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906
2006
Dragon War
1992
Dream Soul
2000
Tiger's Blood
The Tiger's Apprentice, Book Two
2004
The Dragon's Child
A Story of Angel Island
2008
Cockroach Cooties
2000
Dragon's Gate
1993
A Dragon's Guide to Making Perfect Wishes
2017
The Dragon Prince
A Chinese Beauty & the Beast Tale
1997
Dragons of Silk
2011
The Tiger's Apprentice
2003
The Traitor
2003
The Junior Thunder Lord
1996
City of Dragons
1995
Mountain Light
1985
The Serpent's Children
1984
Hiroshima
1995
When the Circus Came to Town
2001
The Journal of Wong Ming-Chung
2013
Designs By Isabelle
2014
Sea Glass
1979
City of Death
2013
Curse of the Squirrel
1987
Skunk Scout
2003
A Dragon's Guide to Making Your Human Smarter
2016
The Shell Woman and the King
A Chinese Folktale
1993
The Star Fisher
1991
Shadow Lord
1985
The Mark Twain murders
1982
Child of the Owl
1977
The Cook's Family
1998
Dragon Road
Golden Mountain Chronicles: 1939
2007
Dragon Cauldron
1991
Mia
2013
Dragon of the Lost Sea
1982
RAINBOW PEOPLE, THE
1989
Tiger Woman
1995
The Man Who Tricked A Ghost
1993
The Khan's Daughter
A Mongolian Folktale
1997
City of Fire
2009
The Star Maker
2010
Monster Makers, Inc.
1986
