Tina Chang

Chang was born in 1969 in Oklahoma to Taiwanese immigrants, who had met in Montreal, where her mother was working as a nurse and her father was earning his doctorate in physics. The family moved to Queens, New York, when she was a year old, where she was raised except for a period during her youth, when Chang and her brother were sent to live in Taiwan with relatives for two years. "I started questioning even at a very young age, well, what is language?" she said. "What is the role of words?" {{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/nyregion/21poet.html | work=The New York Times | title=A Poet Who Doesn't Do Lofty | first=Elissa | last=Gootman | date=March 19, 2010}}

Chang earned her B.A. in English literature from Binghamton University.{{Cite web|url=https://www.binghamton.edu/english/creative-writing/binghamton-center-for-writers/index.html|title=The Binghamton Center for Writers - English, General Literature and Rhetoric {{!}} Binghamton University|website=English, General Literature and Rhetoric - Binghamton University|language=en|access-date=2019-07-21}} She received her Master of Fine Arts degree in poetry from Columbia University.

Since fall of 2020, Chang has served as Professor and Director of Creative Writing at her undergraduate alma mater, Binghamton University. She oversees the Binghamton Center for Writers which includes the Distinguished Writers series, Common Ground, a reading series devoted to undergraduate and graduate creative writers, the Binghamton Writers Project, the Harpur Palate literary journal, Coffee & Conversation, the Word of Mouth annual collaboration between student poets and composers, and annual literary awards.

She published three full-length collections of poetry: Half-Lit Houses (Four Way Books, 2004), Of Gods & Strangers (Four Way Books, 2011), and Hybrida (W.W. Norton, 2019) which was named a Most Anticipated Book of 2019 by The New York Times, O, The Oprah Magazine, NPR, and The Washington Post, and featured in Poets & Writers, the Los Angeles Review of Books among many other publications. It was one of five poetry collections cited by Publishers Weekly in its Best Books of 2019 issue. Along with poets Nathalie Handal and Ravi Shankar, she is the co-editor of Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia and Beyond (W.W. Norton, 2008).

Her work has appeared in numerous publications such as The New York Times, McSweeney's, and Ploughshares.{{Cite web|url=http://www.pshares.org/authors/author-detail.cfm?authorID=1935|title = Read by Author | Ploughshares}} The San Francisco Chronicle has described her poetry as "a vast, beautifully fashioned mosaic of indelible, variegated pieces."{{cite web |last1=Harlan |first1=Megan |title='Language for a New Century': Poetry from Asia |date=20 April 2008 |url=https://www.sfgate.com/books/article/Language-for-a-New-Century-Poetry-from-Asia-3218046.php |publisher=SFGate |accessdate=3 January 2019}} One of her chief goals is to "demystify the role of the poet."

She has held residencies at MacDowell Colony, Djerassi Artist's Residency, Vermont Studio Center, Fundacion Valparaiso, Ragdale, the Constance Saltonstall Foundation,{{Cite web|url=https://www.saltonstall.org/tina-chang-publishes-new-poetry-collection|title=Tina Chang ('06) publishes new poetry collection|website=Saltonstall|language=en-US|access-date=2019-07-10|archive-date=2019-07-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190710161040/https://www.saltonstall.org/tina-chang-publishes-new-poetry-collection|url-status=dead}} Blue Mountain Center, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

Chang was elected Brooklyn Poet Laureate in 2010.{{cite web |url=http://www.brooklyn-usa.org/pages/poetry/BrooklynPoetLaureate.htm |title=Brooklyn Borough President |accessdate=2010-12-14 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20101214041155/http://www.brooklyn-usa.org/pages/Poetry/BrooklynPoetLaureate.htm |archivedate=2010-12-14 }}{{Cite web|url=https://poets.org/poet/tina-chang|title=About Tina Chang {{!}} Academy of American Poets|last=Poets|first=Academy of American|website=poets.org|access-date=2019-07-21}} She has received grants and awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Barbara Deming Memorial Foundation/Money for Women, and the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, Poets & Writers and The Academy of American Poets. She has also won a Dana Award for poetry. She was a finalist for an Asian American Literary Award from the Asian American Writers' Workshop, for Half-Lit Houses{{Cite web|url=https://poets.org/poet/tina-chang|title=About Tina Chang {{!}} Academy of American Poets|last=Poets|first=Academy of American|website=poets.org|access-date=2019-07-21}}

• {{cite book| title=Half-Lit Houses| publisher=Four Way Books| date=2004| isbn=978-1884800528 }}
• {{cite book| title=Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia and Beyond| publisher=W. W. Norton | date=2008| isbn=978-0393332384 }}
• {{cite book| title=Of Gods & Strangers| publisher=Four Way Books| date=2011| isbn=978-1935536178 }}
• {{cite book| title=Hybrida| publisher=W. W. Norton & Company | date=2019| isbn=978-1324002482 }}

• Poetry 30: Poets in their Thirties, (MAMMOTH Books, 2005)
• Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation, (University of Illinois Press, 2004)
• Asian American Literature (McGraw-Hill, 2001)
• Identity Lessons (Penguin, 1999).

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• [http://www.tinachang.com Homepage for Tina Chang]
• [http://www.kwls.org/lit/podcasts/2010/04/tina_chang_2008.cfm Audio recording: Tina Chang at the Key West Literary Seminar, 2008] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101203094508/http://www.kwls.org/lit/podcasts/2010/04/tina_chang_2008.cfm |date=2010-12-03 }}
• [https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/nyregion/21poet.html A Poet Who Doesn't Do Lofty, The New York Times]
• [http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/454376-Why_I_Write_Tina_Chang.php?rssid=20807&q=tina+chang Why I Write, Publishers Weekly]
• [https://www.poetrysociety.org/psa/poetry/crossroads/qa_american_poetry/page_11/ Poetry Society of America, Q & A: American Poetry]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20100713025753/http://www.brooklyn-usa.org/press/2010/feb3b_MA.htm Official Press Release, BP Markowitz Names Tina Chang of Park Slope as Poet Laureate of Brooklyn]
• [http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/brooklyn_new_poet_laureate_wants_IX6FntA0uddHBAPK7xV8qK Brooklyn's New Poet Laureate Wants to Weave Poetry into Residents' Lives]
• [http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=27&id=33360 Brooklyn Poet Laureate Envisions Outreach into Brooklyn Communities]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20070927002929/http://fishousepoems.org/archives/tina_chang/index.shtml From the Fishouse, audio recordings of Tina Chang's poems]
• [http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19802 Interview with Li-Young Lee]
• [http://www.drunkenboat.com/db9/index.html drunkenboat.com, audio recordings of Tina Chang's poems]
• [https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/nyregion/new-jersey/19poetrynj.html?scp=1&sq=tina%20chang&st=cse, New York Times, Princeton Poetry Festival]
• [http://www.guernicamag.com/poetry/436/three_poems_3/ "Strange Theater"; "Wild Invention"; "Imagine, Refugee", Guernica, November 2007]
• [http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19775 "Duality", Poets.org]

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Category:Writers from New York (state)

Category:1969 births

Category:Columbia University School of the Arts alumni

Category:Sarah Lawrence College faculty

Category:Hunter College faculty

Category:Living people

Category:American writers of Taiwanese descent

Category:American poets of Asian descent

Category:American women writers of Chinese descent

Category:American women poets

Category:Municipal poets laureate in the United States

Category:Binghamton University faculty

Category:American women academics

Category:21st-century American women

Category:American women poets of Asian descent