Jenny Zhang (writer)

Last updated
Jenny Zhang
Jenny Zhang Author Photo.jpg
Born1983 (age 4041)
Nationality Chinese American
Other namesJenny Bagel
Alma mater Stanford University
Iowa Writers' Workshop
Occupation(s)Writer
Poet
Essayist
Years active2010-present

Jenny Zhang (born 1983) is an American writer, poet, and prolific essayist based in Brooklyn, New York. [1] [2] One focus of her work is on the Chinese American immigrant identity and experience in the United States. [3] [4] She has published a collection of poetry called Dear Jenny, We Are All Find and a non-fiction chapbook called Hags. [5] From 2011 to 2014, Zhang wrote extensively for Rookie. Additionally, Zhang has worked as a freelance essayist for 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. [3] [6] [7] [8]

Contents

Early life

Zhang was born in Shanghai, China. When she was five years old, Zhang immigrated to New York City 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. [9] [10] [11] Her father withdrew from the PhD program he was enrolled in, began to work as a teacher, and re-enrolled in school for computer programming, with the family eventually moving to Long Island where her father ran a computer repair business. [4] [12] [13] She has a younger brother. [3] [14]

In 2005, Zhang graduated from Stanford University with a BA in Comparative Studies in Race & Ethnicity. In 2009, Zhang received a Master of Fine Arts in fiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. [15] [16]

Career

After college, Zhang 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. [11] [15] Zhang spent a summer in Hungary teaching English as a second language. [11] [17]

While in graduate school at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Zhang taught creative writing to undergraduates at University of Iowa. [18] Zhang then taught high school students in the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn. She has also taught at the New School for Social Research and at Sackett Street Writers' Workshop. [19]

From 2011 to 2014, Zhang was 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. [20]

Among the essays Zhang wrote for Rookie were a 2012 tribute to the rapper M.I.A., [21] The Importance of Angsty Art, an essay on embracing "bad" writing, [22] Odd Girl In, an essay about the conflict between the impulse to rebel and the desire to join political movements, partly based on Zhang's experiences with organizing and activism in San Francisco, [23] Empathy Excess, an essay about emotional abuse and the limits of empathy, [24] and Far Away From Me, an essay about the search for decolonized love, a conflicted teenage love for Weezer, and a deconstruction and investigation into fetishization, objectification, and internalized racism. [25]

In 2012, Zhang published a collection of poetry called Dear Jenny, We Are All Find. [19] [26] Zhang had written some of the poems that made up the collection during her time at Iowa Writers' Workshop, which she did in secret as the poetry program was separate from her fiction program. [27] She wrote the rest of the poems while living in the south of France. The poems were submitted to a contest for a small press, Octopus Books. [28]

In 2014, 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. [29]

2015's "Hags" is an essay Zhang wrote in one night after watching Senator Wendy Davis do a 13-hour filibuster of SB5, a Texas Senate bill that sought to limit access to abortion services. It was then published by Guillotine Books as a limited edition chapbook. [3] [26]

In July 2015, Zhang published an essay called "How It Feels" for an issue of Poetry magazine that was curated by Tavi Gevinson. The essay was a meditation on depression, suicide, excess, Tracey Emin, and poetry. [30] It was nominated for a National Magazine Award. [7] [31]

In August 2015, one of Zhang's stories was included in the first issue of Lena Dunham's Lenny newsletter. [32]

In September 2015, Zhang wrote about issues of racism in the literary community for BuzzFeed. [9] [15]

In August 2017, Zhang's short story collection, Sour Heart, was published by Lena Dunham's Lenny Books imprint on Random House. [6] [33] 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." [3] 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." [34] Sour Heart, a group of seven bildungsroman stories, received positive reviews. [35] [36] [37]

In May 2019, it was announced that Sour Heart would be made into a movie, to be directed by Cathy Yan [38] .

Selected works and publications

In chronological order by section

Poetry

  • Zhang, Jenny (Summer 2012). "Everyone's Girlfriend" (PDF). Clock (3). Florence, MA: O'clock Press: 10–11.
  • Zhang, Jenny (December 2012). "Flush in the spirals of black holes". Coconut (15).
  • Zhang, Jenny (16 December 2012). "The Last Five Centuries Were Uneventful". HTMLGIANT.
  • Zhang, Jenny (January 2013). "seppuku". Sink Review (10).
  • Zhang, Jenny (January 2013). "goo goo water". Sink Review (10).
  • Zhang, Jenny (26 April 2013). "The Universal Energy Is About to Intervene in Your Life". Bomb . Archived from the original on 7 October 2017. Retrieved 8 September 2015. [39]
  • Zhang, Jenny (26 April 2013). "MY BABY FIRST BIRTHDAY". Bomb . Archived from the original on 7 October 2017. Retrieved 8 September 2015.
  • Zhang, Jenny (Spring 2013). "My baby first birthday". Pinwheel (2).
  • Zhang, Jenny (Spring 2013). "You are the poorest person here". Pinwheel (2).
  • Zhang, Jenny. "uncle boo." Adult
  • Zhang, Jenny. "My baby first birthday." Adult
  • Zhang, Jenny (Fall 2013). "I would have no pubes if I were truly in love" (PDF). Adult (1). Third Rail Quarterly: 9–10. [40]
  • Zhang, Jenny (Fall 2013). "It was a period when cunt was in the air" (PDF). Adult (1). Third Rail Quarterly: 67.
  • Zhang, Jenny (25 June 2014). Adult. Archived from the original on 14 July 2014.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  • Zhang, Jenny (26 September 2014). "I Would Have No Pubes If I Were Truly In Love". The Hairpin . Archived from the original on March 6, 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  • Zhang, Jenny (7 November 2014). "I'm a 30 year old White non racist male, with some of my closest friends being Black". The Hairpin . Archived from the original on March 6, 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  • Zhang, Jenny (November 2014). Dumb Theory. Prelude.
  • Zhang, Jenny (22 January 2015). "It Is Finally Midsummer". The Hairpin . Archived from the original on March 6, 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  • Zhang, Jenny (27 February 2015). "Is There A Way To Drain A Lake You Are Afraid You Will One Day Drown In?". The Hairpin . Archived from the original on October 7, 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  • Zhang, Jenny (27 March 2015). "Anaphora". The Hairpin . Archived from the original on April 10, 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  • Zhang, Jenny (2015). "Don't Fucking Text Your Friends When I'm Reading A Poem It Took Two Years to Write". In Lauer, Lynn; Melnick, Lynn (eds.). Please Excuse This Poem: 100 New Poets for the Next Generation. New York: Viking/Penguin. ISBN   978-1-101-61538-6. OCLC   905345570.
  • Zhang, Jenny (4 August 2017). "Follow Him". BuzzFeed .

Non-fiction

Fiction, poetry, and essay collections

Other works

Video
Photography

Honors

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Karr</span> American poet and essayist

Mary Karr is an American poet, essayist and memoirist from East Texas. She is widely noted for her 1995 bestselling memoir The Liars' Club. Karr is the Jesse Truesdell Peck Professor of English Literature at Syracuse University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louise Welsh</span> British fiction writer and dramatist, born 1965

Louise Welsh is an English-born author of short stories and psychological thrillers, resident in Glasgow, Scotland. She has also written three plays, an opera, edited volumes of prose and poetry, and contributed to journals and anthologies. In 2004, she received the Corine Literature Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emily Gould</span> American author

Emily Gould is an American author, novelist and blogger who worked as an editor at Gawker. She has written several short stories and novels and is the co-owner, with fellow writer Ruth Curry, of the independent e-bookstore Emily Books.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rachel Rose</span> Canadian/American poet, essayist and short story writer

Rachel Rose is a Canadian/American poet, essayist and short story writer. She has published three collections of poetry, Giving My Body to Science, Notes on Arrival and Departure, and Song and Spectacle. Her poems, essays and short stories have been published in literary magazines and anthologies in Canada and the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lena Dunham</span> American writer and actress (born 1986)

Lena Dunham is an American writer, director, actress, and producer. She is the creator, writer, and star of the HBO television series Girls (2012–2017), for which she received several Emmy Award nominations and two Golden Globe Awards. Dunham also directed several episodes of Girls and became the first woman to win the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Comedy Series. She started her career writing, directing, and starring in her semi-autobiographical independent film Tiny Furniture (2010), for which she won an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay. She has since written and directed the 2022 films Sharp Stick and Catherine Called Birdy.

Girls is an American comedy-drama television series created by and starring Lena Dunham, executive-produced by Judd Apatow. The series depicts four young women living in New York City. The show's premise was drawn from Dunham's own life, as were major aspects of the main character, including financial isolation from her parents, becoming a writer, and making unfortunate decisions. The series is known for its post-feminist commentary and conversation around body politics and female sexual subjecthood.

Cyrus Dunham is an American writer, actor, and activist. Dunham is a published author, whose debut book, A Year Without A Name: A Memoir, was a Lambda Literary Award finalist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chelsea Martin</span> American author and illustrator (born 1986)

Chelsea Martin is an American author and illustrator.

<i>Not That Kind of Girl</i> 2014 book by Lena Dunham

Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned" is a 2014 memoir written by Lena Dunham. The book, a collection of autobiographical essays, lists, and emails, was released in hardcover by Random House on September 30, 2014, and in paperback on October 20, 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sadie Dupuis</span> Musical artist

Sarah Elizabeth "Sadie" Dupuis is an American musician who is the guitarist, lead vocalist and lyricist for the band Speedy Ortiz. She has also released two solo albums, Slugger and Haunted Painting, under the name Sad13. Dupuis has published two books of poetry. A portrait of her was featured on the August 22, 2022 cover of The New Yorker. In October 2023, Rolling Stone named Dupuis as one of The 250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kellen Dunham</span> American basketball player (born 1993)

Kellen Dunham is an American professional basketball player for the Indiana All-Americans of The Basketball League (TBL). He played college basketball for the Butler Bulldogs. At Pendleton Heights High School in Pendleton, Indiana, Dunham led the state of Indiana in scoring as a senior with 29.5 points per game and was named Herald Bulletin Player of the Year. Dunham committed to Butler on July 7, 2010 and was highly regarded by recruiting services. As a freshman, he was a 2012–13 Atlantic 10 All-Rookie Team selection. He scored 16.4 points per game as a sophomore and was named to the 2013–14 All-Big East Second-team. He was a 2014–15 All-Big East First-team selection as a junior.

Jennifer A. Konner is an American television writer, producer and director. She is best known as co-showrunner and writer with Lena Dunham of the HBO series Girls. In 2016, she directed the season finale of the fifth season of Girls entitled "I Love You Baby" and in 2017, she directed the episode "Latching," which served as the series finale; both episodes were co-written by Judd Apatow, Dunham and Konner.

Lenny Letter, also known as Lenny, was a weekly online feminist newsletter created by Lena Dunham and Jennifer Konner. Lenny also had a book imprint called Lenny Books on Random House. It was shut down in October 2018.

Cup of Jo is a New York-based lifestyle, fashion, design, and parenting blog by Joanna Goddard. Goddard began the site in 2007 and it now includes contributing writers and editors Jenny Rosenstrach, Jannelle Sanchez, Thao Thai, Alex Ronan, Christine Pride and Catherine Newman, and formerly, Ashley C. Ford, Caroline Donofrio, Erica Chidi, Kim Rhodes, and Stella Blackmon. Goddard has written for Bene, Glamour, New York Magazine, The New York Times, and Elle; In 2011, Refinery 29 dubbed Goddard "Queen of the Blogosphere".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J Wortham</span> American journalist

J Wortham is an American journalist. They work as a culture writer for The New York Times Magazine and co-host The New York Times podcast Still Processing with Wesley Morris. In 2020, with Kimberly Drew, Wortham published Black Futures, an anthology of Black art, writing and other creative work.

Doreen St. Félix is a Haitian-American writer. She is a staff writer for The New Yorker and was formerly editor-at-large for Lenny Letter, a newsletter from Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner.

Amy Rose Spiegel is a writer and editor. She is the author of Action: A Book About Sex and NoOne Does It Like You: And 77 Other Illustrated Affirmations and a senior editor at Broadly.

Zinzi Clemmons is an American writer. She is known for her 2017 debut novel What We Lose.

<i>Providence</i> (Kepnes novel)

Providence is Caroline Kepnes's third novel. It has been described as romance-suspense-thriller, with supernatural aspects. Reviewers have explicitly characterized it as "strange".

<i>A Hope More Powerful than the Sea</i> 2017 non-fiction book by Melissa Fleming

A Hope More Powerful than the Sea is a book by Melissa Fleming about Syrian refugee Doaa Al Zamel's experiences leading up to and during the 2014 Malta migrant shipwreck.

References

  1. Bromwich, Kathryn (23 July 2017). "Jenny Zhang: 'The young girl has always been reviled and fetishised'". The Guardian .
  2. Guan, Frank (1 August 2017). "Author Jenny Zhang on China, Family, Class, and Sour Heart". Vulture .
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Lenny Letter (1 August 2017). "An Evening with Jenny Zhang and Lena Dunham". Facebook . Housing Works, New York.
  4. 1 2 Cusumano, Katherine (26 July 2017). "In Her Book Sour Heart, Jenny Zhang Arrives as a Chinese-American Voice We Haven't Heard Yet". W .
  5. 1 2 Smith, Rich (10 March 2016). "Jenny Zhang Likes to Get Uncomfortable". The Stranger .
  6. 1 2 "Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang: Announcing the first book in the Lenny imprint". Lenny Letter . 1 June 2017. Archived from the original on 15 October 2017. Retrieved 12 August 2017.
  7. 1 2 3 Ziv, Stav (18 April 2016). "Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner's New Lenny Book Imprint Has Acquired Its First Title". Newsweek .
  8. Biedenharn, Isabella (18 April 2016). "Lena Dunham's Lenny imprint signs first book". Entertainment Weekly .
  9. 1 2 Zhang, Jenny (11 September 2015). "They Pretend To Be Us While Pretending We Don't Exist". BuzzFeed .
  10. Zhang, Jenny (27 July 2017). "Lit Thursday: Get a Sneak Peak[sic] of the First Book in the Lenny Imprint". Lenny Letter . Archived from the original on 9 October 2017. Retrieved 12 August 2017.
  11. 1 2 3 4 "Jenny Zhang". Glimmer Train. Fall 2011.
  12. Downing, Brandon (April 2015). "Poetry at the New Museum's Triennial: Jenny Zhang, Brandon Brown, and Cathy Park Hong by Brandon Downing". Poetry Foundation .
  13. Richards, Sophia (8 January 2017). "14: Jenny Zhang poet and writer". Mythos Magazine. Archived from the original on 14 August 2017. Retrieved 14 August 2017.
  14. Fitch, Andy (22 January 2013). "Jenny Zhang with Andy Fitch". The Conversant. Archived from the original on 14 August 2017. Retrieved 14 August 2017.
  15. 1 2 3 Mahajan, Karan (5 July 2016). "The Subversive New Generation of Asian American Writers". Vice .
  16. "Past Provost's Postgraduate Visiting Writers and Fellows". University of Iowa . Archived from the original on 2017-08-12. Retrieved 2017-08-12.
  17. Alvarez, Ana Cecilia (9 December 2015). "Jenny Zhang's Infinite Dregs". Adult. Archived from the original on 13 January 2016.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  18. Brown, Nate (12 August 2016). "Every Day, a Funeral: Jenny Zhang and Nate Brown in Conversation". Los Angeles Review of Books .
  19. 1 2 "Poet of the Week: Jenny Zhang (March 18–24, 2013)". Brooklyn Poets. 18 March 2013.
  20. Shane, Charlotte; Zhang, Jenny (9 March 2016). "There's no spectrum of nuance for why people might expose themselves". Medium . Archived from the original on 14 August 2017. Retrieved 14 August 2017.
  21. Zhang, Jenny (15 October 2012). "Literally the Best Thing Ever: M.I.A." Rookie (14).
  22. Zhang, Jenny (11 April 2013). "The Importance of Angsty Art". Rookie (20).
  23. Zhang, Jenny (26 May 2014). "Odd Girl In". Rookie (21).
  24. Zhang, Jenny (15 April 2015). "Empathy, In Excess". Rookie (44).
  25. Zhang, Jenny (28 April 2015). "Far Away From Me". Rookie (44).
  26. 1 2 Nguyen, Jeff (26 October 2015). "Poet in profile: The scar lit district of Jenny Zhang". Jacket2. Kelly Writers House.
  27. Zaleska, Monika (3 August 2017). "Jenny Zhang: "I Didn't Want to Give in to the White American Gaze"". Literary Hub .
  28. Karl, Steven (23 October 2012). "Snapshot: Jenny Zhang". Coldfront. Archived from the original on 14 August 2017. Retrieved 14 August 2017.
  29. Aylmer, Olivia (31 July 2017). "How Jenny Zhang Discovered Her Literary Fairy Godmother in Lena Dunham". Vanity Fair .
  30. Zhang, Jenny (July 2015). "How It Feels". Poetry . Poetry Foundation.
  31. 1 2 Holt, Sid; Russ, Susan (3 February 2016). "Ellie Awards 2016 Winners Announced". American Society of Magazine Editors . Archived from the original (Press release) on 15 November 2016. Retrieved 24 March 2017.
  32. Thompson, Eliza (31 August 2015). "Read Lena Dunham's First Published Short Story". Cosmopolitan .
  33. Dunham, Lena; Konner, Jenni (21 July 2017). "The Lenny Imprint's Jenny Zhang Is on a Weird Journey All Her Own". Lenny Letter . Archived from the original on 1 September 2017. Retrieved 12 August 2017.
  34. Zhang, Jenny (28 July 2017). "Powell's Q&A: Jenny Zhang, Author of 'Sour Heart' by Jenny Zhang". Powell's Books .
  35. Hong, Terry (2 August 2017). "'Sour Heart' author Jenny Zhang illuminates the immigrant's struggles to belong". Christian Science Monitor .
  36. Cormack, Mike (10 August 2017). "Jenny Zhang's taboo-busting stories mix the sweet with the rancid". South China Morning Post .
  37. Lorentzen, Christian (8 August 2017). "Jenny Zhang's Sour Heart Is a Knockout". Vulture .
  38. N'Duka, Amanda (7 May 2019). "'Birds of Prey' Helmer Cathy Yan To Direct 'Sour Hearts' For A24". Deadline Hollywood .
  39. Zhang, Jenny (28 December 2012). "Jenny Zhang, "The Universal Energy Is About to Intervene in Your Life"" (video). Brooklyn Poets Reading Series.
  40. Nigatu, Heben; Clayton, Tracy (1 June 2016). "Episode 57: She's So Glossy (with Jenny Zhang)" (Audio podcast). Another Round with Heben & Tracy. Zhang reads poem and interview starts at 15:00
  41. Montes, Roberto (24 April 2014). "Jenny Zhangs Dear Jenny We Are All Find". Sink Review.
  42. Etzkorn, Tim (24 January 2014). "Jenny Zhang's Dear Jenny, We are all Find". The Volta Blog.
  43. Carroll, Tobias (4 August 2014). "The Zinophile: Reading Jenny Zhang's "Hags"". Vol. 1 Brooklyn.
  44. Healy, Claire Marie (25 July 2014). "Jenny Zhang's sisterhood is stranger than yours". Dazed .
  45. 1 2 3 "Jenny Zhang". Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Archived from the original on 2017-10-10. Retrieved 2017-08-14.
  46. "Los Angeles Times Book Prizes Winners Announced". Los Angeles Times . 20 April 2018.
  47. "The 2018 PEN America Literary Awards Winners". PEN America . 20 February 2018.
  48. Maher, John (21 February 2018). "Long Soldier, Zhang, Le Guin Win At 2018 PEN Literary Awards". Publishers Weekly .