Now accepting submissions: 2024 Betty L. Yu and Jin C. Yu Creative Writing Prizes celebrate Taiwanese American student and adult writers

  TaiwaneseAmerican.org is pleased to announce the 2024 Betty L. Yu and Jin C. Yu Creative Writing Prizes. Created in 2021 in collaboration with Taiwanese American author Charles Yu, the Prizes are intended to encourage and recognize creative literary work by Taiwanese American students, and to foster discussion and community around such work. In 2022, the prize expanded to include a separate middle school category for 6th-8th grade applicants, judged by Alvina Ling. In 2023, we added…

Now accepting submissions: 2023 Betty L. Yu and Jin C. Yu Creative Writing Prizes celebrate Taiwanese American student and adult writers

TaiwaneseAmerican.org is pleased to announce the 2023 Betty L. Yu and Jin C. Yu Creative Writing Prizes. Created in 2021 in collaboration with Taiwanese American author Charles Yu, the Prizes are intended to encourage and recognize creative literary work by Taiwanese American students, and to foster discussion and community around such work. In 2022, the prize expanded to include a separate middle school category for 6th-8th grade applicants, judged by Alvina Ling. This year, we have added an…

Hannah Han: Rusted Dawn

Laopopo: great-grandmother Laogongong: great-grandfather In Shandong, mountains rise like fists from the earth, and pagoda trees blossom, releasing wild fuchsia plumes between the ancient fingers. Beneath the mountains, two rivers melt into a vein pulsing with grass carp, silver bream, and slippery crustaceans. It was there that my laopopo and her friends swam in the summer, opening their eyes beneath the water and counting how many pebbles they could collect from the river bottom before…

Charles Yu celebrates sophomore year of Betty L. Yu and Jin C. Yu Creative Writing Prizes with fellow judges, participants

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6n6OZKNfmA[/embed] We are excited to share, with permission, a recording of the 2022 Betty L. Yu and Jin C. Yu Creative Writing Prize "Meet the Judges" event with authors Charles Yu and Shawna Yang Ryan and Little, Brown Brooks for Young Readers Editor-in-Chief Alvina Ling. TaiwaneseAmerican.org founder Ho Chie Tsai and 2021/2022 finalist Jireh Deng shared remarks. , Grand Prize Winners Ian Tseng and Yakuza Baby and Finalist Kira Tang also read from their…

Charles Yu, Shawna Yang Ryan, Alvina Ling Select 2022 Creative Writing Prize Recipients

We are pleased to announce the 2022 cohort of honorable mentions, finalists, and grand prize winners of the Betty L. Yu & Jin C. Yu Creative Writing Prizes, established in partnership with TaiwaneseAmerican.org in honor of Yu’s parents, who are longstanding Taiwanese American community leaders. In its second year, the prize has expanded to include middle school participants and selections. Their work will be published on TaiwaneseAmerican.org throughout the year. The Prizes are named…

Now accepting submissions: 2022 Betty L. Yu and Jin C. Yu Creative Writing Prizes celebrate Taiwanese American student writers

TaiwaneseAmerican.org is pleased to announce the 2022 Betty L. Yu and Jin C. Yu Creative Writing Prizes. Created in 2021 in collaboration with Taiwanese American author Charles Yu, the Prizes are intended to encourage and recognize creative literary work by Taiwanese American students, and to foster discussion and community around such work. This year, in addition to high school and college categories, applicants currently in 6th-8th grade may apply for the middle school category. Submissions…

Spencer Chang: “Ghost Stories” and Other Poems

From the judges, Charles Yu and Shawna Yang Ryan: "In this sophisticated collection of poems confronting personal and community history, Spencer Chang elegantly uses a variety of poetic forms, white space, and highly original images to great emotional effect. In language where violence and beauty collide, Chang illuminates historical events such as the 228 Massacre, the murder of Vincent Chin, and the sacrifice of the Chinese in the building of the Transcontinental Railroad. Ultimately,…

Candice Wang: The Palace Within

Before I learned the word uterus, I knew all about the baby palace. That’s what my mama called it, placing her palms over the soft lower region of her stomach. I’d stare down at my naked abdomen and wonder—how could there be a whole palace built within me? Was I that cavernous?  To me, the uterus wasn’t a mass of delicate tissue, arching fallopian tubes, and pulsing blood vessels. It was a glittering hall carved directly into the skeleton of my body— something akin to the Hall of…

Nnadi Samuel: “Subject Lessons” (Poems)

We are so honored to share "Subject Lessons," a collection of poetry by Nnadi Samuel. Samuel is a recipient of the prestigious Falun Gong Poetry Prize, which got him a two-year scholarship in National Dong Hwa College in Hualien to study Chinese Language & Literature. Nnadi Samuel (he/him/his) holds a B.A in English & literature from the University of Benin. His works have been previously published in Suburban Review, Seventh Wave Magazine, North Dakota Quarterly, Quarterly…

“Elegy for a Century Egg” and Other Poems by Katy Hargett-Hsu

  Kathryn Hargett-Hsu 徐凯蒂 is an incoming MFA candidate in poetry at Washington University in St. Louis. A 2018 Best New Poet, she is the recipient of fellowships from Kundiman, the Bucknell Seminar for Undergraduate Poets, Belgrade Art Studio, and UAB. Most recently, she received the Barksdale-Maynard Prize in Poetry and was selected as a National YoungArts Foundation Finalist in Writing. Find her in Field Notes on Survival (2020), Best New Poets (2018), Anomaly, The…