Ching-In Chen

Poet and organizer Ching-In Chen is author of to make black paper sing (speCt! books, 2019), recombinant (2017), and The Heart’s Traffic (2009). They have coedited two anthologies: The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities (2011) and Here Is a Pen: An Anthology of West Coast Kundiman Poets (2009). A Kundiman, Lambda, and Callaloo fellow, they are a part of the Macondo and Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation writing communities, and have been a participant in Sharon Bridgforth’s Theatrical Jazz Institute. They have helped to organize Asian American communities in San Francisco, Oakland, Riverside, and Boston. Chen earned a BA from Tufts University, MFA from University of California, Riverside, and PhD from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.

Chen has been awarded fellowships from Soul Mountain Retreat, Ragdale Foundation, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Millay Colony, and the Norman Mailer Center. Their poem-play “The Geisha Play” was nominated for a John Cauble Short Play Award. They currently teach at University of Washington, Bothell.