Victoria Chang

Victoria Chang
Born	1970 (age 53–54) Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
Occupation	Poet writer editor critic
Education	University of Michigan (BA) Harvard University (MA) Stanford University (MBA) Warren Wilson College (MFA)
Website
victoriachangpoet.com

Victoria Chang (born 1970) is an American poet, writer, editor, and critic. She has experimented with different styles of writing, including writing obituaries for parts of her life, including her parents and herself, in Obit, letters in Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief, and a Japanese form known as waka in The Trees Witness Everything. In all of her poems and books, Chang has several common themes: living as an Asian-American woman, depression, and dealing with loss and grief. She has also written two books for children.

Early life and education

Victoria Chang was born in a Taiwanese-American family in Detroit, Michigan, and raised in the suburb of West Bloomfield. Her parents were immigrants from Taiwan. She graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in Asian Studies, Harvard University with a M.A. in Asian Studies, and Stanford Business School with a M.B.A. She also earned a M.F.A. in poetry from the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, where she held a Holden Scholarship.

Career

Chang's first book, Circle (Southern Illinois University Press, 2005), won the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry. Her second poetry collection is Salvinia Molesta (University of Georgia Press, 2008). Her third book of poetry, The Boss was published by McSweeney's in 2013—it won a PEN Center USA literary award and a California Book Award. Another collection, Barbie Chang, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2017.

Her fifth book of poems, OBIT, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2020. It won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the PEN Voelcker Award, and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Prize and was a finalist for National Book Critics Circle Award, the Griffin Poetry Prize, and long listed for the National Book Award. It was also named a New York Times Notable Book, a New York Times Best 100 Books of the Year, a TIME Magazine, NPR, Boston Globe, and Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year.

In 2021, she published Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief, Milkweed Editions. The book was a TIME, Lithub, and NPR most anticipated book of 2021. It was named one of Electric Literature’s Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2021.

Her sixth book of poems, The Trees Witness Everything, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2022. It was named a Best Book of 2022 by The New Yorker.

In 2024, Chang's collection of poems, With My Back to the World, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. It was shortlisted for the Forward Prize in Poetry.

She also writes picture books for children and middle grade novels, and her picture book, Is Mommy? published by Beach Lane Books (Simon & Schuster) in the fall of 2015, illustrated by Marla Frazee, was named a New York Times Notable Book. Her middle grade verse novel, LOVE, LOVE was published by Sterling Publishing in 2020.

Chang serves as the Bourne Chair in Poetry at Georgia Tech and as the Director of Poetry at Tech. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2017, the Chowdhury International Prize in Literature in 2023, a Lannan Residency Fellowship in 2020, a Sustainable Arts Foundation Fellowship in 2017, a Poetry Society of America Alice Fay di Castagnola Award in 2018, a Pushcart Prize, and a MacDowell Fellowship. Her work has appeared in literary journals and magazines including The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast, Virginia Quarterly Review, Slate, Ploughshares, and The Nation, and Tin House.

Honors and awards

• With My Back to the World received the Forward Prize in Poetry for Best Poetry Collection in 2024
• Chowdhury International Prize in Literature, 2023
• The Trees Witness Everything was named a Best Book of 2022 by The New Yorker
• Dear Memory was named one of Electric Literature’s Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2022
• OBIT won the 2021 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for poetry
• OBIT won the 2020 Los Angeles Times Poetry Book Prize
• OBIT was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award
• OBIT won the PEN Voelcker Award
• OBIT was long listed for a National Book Award
• OBIT was a finalist for the Griffin International Poetry Prize
• OBIT was named a New York Times 100 Best Books of the Year, a TIME Magazine Best 100 Books of the Year, NPR's Best Books of the Year, Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year, Boston Globe Best Books of the Year
• 2020 Lannan Foundation Residency Fellowship
• 2020 Frank Sanchez Book Award
• 2019 MacDowell Katherine Min Fellowship
• 2017 Pushcart Prize
• 2018 Housatonic Book Award for Barbie Chang
• Poetry Society of America's Alice Fay di Castagnola Award 2017
• Sustainable Arts Foundation Fellowship 2017
• Guggenheim Fellowship 2017
• IS MOMMY? named a New York Times Notable Book in 2015
• 2014, The Boss winner of a 2014 PEN Center USA Literary Award
• 2014, The Boss winner of a 2013 Commonwealth California Book Award (Silver Medal)
• 2004 Crab Orchard Review Open Competition Award
• Salvinia Molesta Finalist for the 2008 Commonwealth California Book Award
• Circle, Winner of the Association for Asian American Studies Book award
• Circle, finalist for the PEN Center West Book Award
• 2007 Ploughshares Cohen Award
• 2005 Bread Loaf Writers' Conference Fellowship
• 2005 Sewanee Writers' Conference Fellowship
• 2003 Bread Loaf Writers' Conference Scholarship

Published works

Poetry Collections

• With My Back to the World, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024
• The Trees Witness Everything, Copper Canyon Press, 2022
• OBIT, Copper Canyon Press, 2020
• Barbie Chang, Copper Canyon Press, 2017
• The Boss, McSweeney's Poetry Series, 2014
• Salvinia Molesta. University of Georgia Press. 2008. ISBN 978-0-8203-3176-8.
• Circle. Southern Illinois University Press. 2005. ISBN 978-0-8093-2618-1.

Prose Books

• Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief, Milkweed Editions, 2021

Children's Books

• Love Love, Sterling Books, 2020
• Is Mommy?. Beach Lane Books. 2015. ISBN 978-1481402927.

Anthologies Edited

• Victoria M. Chang, ed. (2004). Asian American poetry: the next generation. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-07174-4.

Anthology Publications

• Tracy K. Smith; David Lehman, eds. (2021). "Obit". The Best American Poetry 2021. Simon and Schuster.
• Paisley Rekdal; David Lehman, eds. (2020). "Obit". The Best American Poetry 2020. Simon and Schuster.
• Major Jackson; David Lehman, eds. (2019). Six poems from OBIT. The Best American Poetry 2019. Simon and Schuster.
• Paul Muldoon; David Lehman, eds. (2005). "Seven Changs". The Best American Poetry 2005. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-5738-1.
• Pushcart Prize Anthology, 2018

External links

• Author's Website
• Interview: "How the Work of Agnes Martin Inspired Victoria Chang's New Book of Poems", Interview Magazine (online), April 10, 2024.

• National Book Award: https://www.nationalbook.org/books/obit/
• Interview: every other day > 13 June 2006 > Victoria Chang Interview
• Audio: Victoria Chang Reading for From the Fishouse
• "Drawing New Circles: Dialogue with Victoria Chang", Emprise Review
• "The Guests". Threepenny Review. Summer 2005.
• "Love Poem as Eye Examination". The Missouri Review.
• "Proof". Ploughshares. Spring 2006. Archived from the original on February 17, 2007.
• "Spring Planting". Ploughshares. Spring 2006. Archived from the original on November 4, 2007.