Monica Youn

Life

Youn was raised in Houston, Texas. She graduated from St. Agnes Academy (Texas), Princeton University, Yale Law School with a J.D., and Oxford University with a M. Phil, where she was a Rhodes Scholar.

Literary career

She is the author of three books of poems: Blackacre, Ignatz, and Barter. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review, among other journals. She has given readings at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), on NPR's All Things Considered and was a keynote reader at the 2012 Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference.

She current teaches creative writing at Princeton University and at the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers. She previously taught at Bennington College, Columbia University, and at the Sarah Lawrence College MFA program.

Legal career

She was the inaugural Brennan Center Constitutional Fellow at New York University Law School. She formerly directed the campaign finance reform project at the Brennan Center for Justice. She is a member of the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States and was co-lead counsel for Defendant-Intervenors in McComish v. Bennett in 2011. She has appeared on PBS Newshour,Hardball with Chris Matthews, Bill Moyers Journal, and Need to Know. She is the editor of Money, Politics and the Constitution: Beyond Citizens United. She has testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the House Judiciary Committee, and the House Committee on Administration.

She was a pledged delegate for Obama in the 2008 presidential election. She has written for Slate, The Los Angeles Times, and The Huffington Post.