Joe Zee

Joe Zee is defending The Woo-Woo by Lindsay Wong on Canada Reads 2019.

• Get to know the Canada Reads 2019 contenders

An alumnus of New York City's Fashion Institute of Technology, Joe Zee is a resident judge on the television show Stitched in Canada, has appeared on ABC's Good Morning America and their annual Oscars pre-show, NBC's Today,CNN, The Oprah Winfrey Showand was previously the special fashion correspondent for Entertainment Tonight. He's also known for the seven plus years he spent as creative director at Ellemagazine. In 2018 he launched the original Netflix documentary series 7 Days Out, as its executive producer, which documents the week leading up to some of the world's biggest events from the Westminster Dog Show to the Kentucky Derby. In 2015 he published his career memoir, That's What Fashion Is: Lessons and Stories from My Nonstop, Mostly Glamorous Life in Style. Zee recently married his partner, designer Rob Younkers.

• Joe Zee's top 5 celebrity fashion moments

Why Joe Zee chose to defend The Woo-Woo

"I feel like I'm going crazy. And sometimes I feel like I am the sanest person in the room.Mental health affects us all and if we don't talk about it, especially in myAsian culture, well, it might just go away. And that, my friends, is the heart ofThe Woo-Woo.

Lindsay Wong's darkly comedic memoir will break your heart.- Joe Zee

"Lindsay Wong's darkly comedic memoir will break your heart. I lived her words and her shame dealing with her Chinese Canadian family's grapple with mental health, their dark days explained away asa superstitionbeyond their control."

Read more in Joe Zee's interview with CBC.

More about Joe Zee

More about Canada Reads

Joe Zee and Ziya Tong on confronting stereotypes and stigmas

6 years ago

Duration 2:37

On Canada Reads 2019, panellists Joe Zee and Ziya Tong discuss book The Woo-Woo by Lindsay Wong's approach to confronting stereotypes and stigmas about ethnicity and mental illness.

Books by Joe Zee

The Canada Reads 2019 contenders

• Chuck Comeau, defending Homes by Abu Bakral Rabeeah and Winnie Yeung
• Lisa Ray, defending Brother by David Chariandy
• Ziya Tong, defending By Chance Alone by Max Eisen
• Yanic Truesdale, defending Suzanne by Anas Barbeau-Lavalette, translated by Rhonda Mullins
• Joe Zee, defending The Woo-Woo by Lindsay Wong