Lisa_Chen

Lisa Chen

Lisa Chen

Taiwanese-American writer

Lisa Hsiao Chen is a Taiwanese-born American writer, based in Brooklyn, most famous for the widely reviewed autofiction Activities of Daily Living.[1]

Quick Facts Born, Occupation ...

Biography

Chen was born in Taipei, Taiwan.[2] She earned her B.A. from UC Berkeley and her M.F.A. from the University of Iowa.[3] Chen's debut poetry collection, Mouth, was published through Kaya Press in 2007. In an interview with Writer's Bone, Chen said she garnered inspiration for her collection from her email spam folder, ads, news items, conversation, and Hokusai's 100 Views of Mount Fuji, among other influences.[4]

She has held residencies at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace Program and Blue Mountain Center, and was a NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship Finalist in Nonfiction Literature in 2017 and a Center for Fiction Emerging Writers Fellow from 2015 to 2016.[5] She received a 2018 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award.[6]

In an interview with the Sonora Review, Chen said she is interested in written forms "animated by what Viktor Shklovsky called ostranenie, or 'making strange'—sometimes translated as 'estrangement' or 'defamiliarization.'"[7]

Awards and honors

In 2009, Mouth won the Book Award for Poetry from the Association for Asian American Studies.[8]

Activities of Daily Living was longlisted for the inaugural Carol Shields Prize for Fiction in 2023.[9]

References

  1. [1]
    Briefly reviewed in the May 23, 2022 issue Archived July 19, 2023, at the Wayback Machine of The New Yorker, p.61.
  2. [2]
    "Lisa Chen". Kaya Press. Archived from the original on April 27, 2024. Retrieved May 21, 2020.
  3. [3]
    "Winner, Lisa Chen". Rona. Archived from the original on September 19, 2020. Retrieved May 21, 2020.
  4. [4]
    "Setting Off Sparks With Poet Lisa Chen". Writer's Bone. Archived from the original on August 17, 2019. Retrieved May 21, 2020.
  5. [5]
    "Lisa Chen, Workspace 2017-18". LMCC. Retrieved May 21, 2020.
  6. [6]
    "Winner, Lisa Chen". Rona. Archived from the original on September 19, 2020. Retrieved May 21, 2020.
  7. [7]
    "SR 72 Contributor Interviews: Lisa Chen". Sonora Review. April 20, 2018. Archived from the original on September 26, 2020. Retrieved May 21, 2020.
  8. [8]
    "Award Winners". aaastudies.org. Association for Asian American Studies. Archived from the original on March 14, 2017. Retrieved May 21, 2020.
  9. [9]
    Deborah Dundas, "5 Canadians nominated for first Carol Shields Prize for Fiction for women and non-binary writers, worth $150,000 (U.S.)" Archived March 10, 2023, at the Wayback Machine. Toronto Star, March 8. 2023.
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