Name Jenny Zhang | Role Writer | |
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Books Dear Jenny, We are All Find | ||
An evening with jenny zhang and lena dunham to launch lenny books
Jenny Zhang (born 1983) is an American writer, poet, and prolific essayist based in Brooklyn, New York. One focus of her work is on the Chinese American immigrant identity and experience in the United States. She has two published collections of poetry, Dear Jenny, We Are All Find and Hags. Zhang also writes for Rookie and other publications. In August 2017, Zhang's short story collection, Sour Heart, was the first acquisition by Lena Dunham's Lenny imprint, Lenny Books, via Random House.
Contents
- An evening with jenny zhang and lena dunham to launch lenny books
- Aracelis girmay jenny zhang
- Early life
- Career
- Works and publications
- Fiction
- Other works
- Honors
- References
Aracelis girmay jenny zhang
Early life
Zhang was born in Shanghai, China, to a father whose family came from Shandong in the East China region and a mother whose family came from Wenzhou in the southeastern Zhejiang province of China. When she was five years old, Zhang immigrated to Flushing, Queens, to join her father, who was studying linguistics at New York University, and mother, who had come to the United States after the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Her father withdrew from the PhD program right before defending his dissertation, worked as a substitute teacher, and then went into the computer repair business, with the family eventually moved to Long Island. She has a younger brother.
Zhang attended Stanford University, then moved to San Francisco where she worked as a union organizer for Chinese home healthcare workers and as an organizer for the writing non-profit 826 Valencia which helps children and young adults learn how to write, while also writing on the side. Zhang spent a summer in Hungary teaching English as a second language. In 2010, Zhang received a Master of Fine Arts in fiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. During this time she taught creative writing to undergraduates at University of Iowa. Also while at Iowa, Lena Dunham asked her to join a promotional tour for her book, Not That Kind of Girl. This later led to Dunham publishing Zhang's 2017 book, Sour Heart. Zhang then taught high school students in the West Bronx as well as at the New School For Social Research and at Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop.
Career
Since 2011, Zhang has been a regular contributor to the online magazine for teen girls, Rookie, for which she has written both fiction and nonfiction since the magazine's inception. She has also written for features on the Rookie site such as "Oh! You Pretty Things," which answers readers’ questions about beauty, and "Saturday Links," which published a weekly-roundup of current events with links to news articles, websites, and photos.
In 2012, Zhang published a collection of short stories called Dear Jenny, We Are All Find. Zhang wrote part of the stories during her time at Iowa Writers' Workshop, and then the rest while she lived in France.
Although her MFA at Iowa was in fiction writing, Zhang has also focused on writing poetry, which led to the publication of the 2015 chapbook, Hags.
In August 2015, one of Zhang's stories was included in the first issue of Lena Dunham's Lenny newsletter.
In September 2015, Zhang wrote about issues of racism in the literary community for BuzzFeed.
In August 2017, Zhang's short story collection, Sour Heart, was published by Lena Dunham's Lenny Books imprint on Random House. Many of the stories were written and evolved over a long period of time, with the oldest having initially been written when Zhang was 19 years old, the short story called "The Evolution of My Brother." Zhang said that the title and theme of the book came from a wish "to convey the unreality of childhood, the sweetness and the sourness of being so small, so helpless, and so dependent on adults. We tend to render childhood as purely idyllic and innocent, or totally nightmarish and traumatic, but there’s a spectrum of nuance that lies between." Sour Heart, a group of seven bildungsroman stories, received positive reviews.
Works and publications
In chronological order by section