I'm a writer, theater-maker, and cultural designer whose work moves between the page, stage, screen, and civic systems — and asks, underneath all of it: what does it mean to become human, and who gets to decide? Born in Beijing, raised in Hong Kong, and formed as an artist in New York City, I've spent my life combining worlds — cultures, languages, systems — and my methods follow: participatory, co-created, and rooted in the field.

I'm drawn to the field — joining Chinese feminist communities in Chiang Mai, co-creating with formerly incarcerated men in Massachusetts, reaching out to Chinese residents in Sunset Park around civic issues. My design work is to go where the narrative is being made, find what others miss, and illuminate it.

I'm completing a Master's at Harvard University, where my research explores how the "right to become human" — the idea that personhood is cultivated, not given — can manifest in schools, rituals, and institutions. Drawing on Chinese and comparative philosophy, embodied practice, and theater, I'm interested in designing structures that construct new values and protect a fuller range of human becoming: one rooted in relational care, healthy interdependence, and moral development in community

Across my career I've moved between the page, stage, screen, and civic systems — as a segment producer at Netflix's Peabody-winning Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj; a teaching artist and community engagement lead at documentary theater company Ping Chong + Company; playwright and performer of Ascend! (The Tank, 2021); founder of Sandbox, a writing community for Asian diasporic writers; and designer of The LinkedThru Project, featured in Wired as an innovative approach to stigma and employment for returning citizens. I'm a Pushcart-nominated writer with work in The New York Times, The Dial, Atlas Obscura, The Atlantic, and others. My short story "Slow Clap" won Joyland Magazine's 2022 Open Border Fiction Prize.

Interested in moving narratives with me? Let's talk!


Currently:

Exhibiting Awake*, a residential program for teenagers to reset their relationship with technology through pluriversal, somatic, and contemplative learning, at the Design a School exhibition, Harvard Graduate School of Education. April 30, 3-5pm, Gutman Library.

Co-presenting with Michael Puett (philosopher of Chinese thought, author of The Path*) on ritual, self-cultivation, and education. Harvard University, May 2026.*

Developing Out of Time, a theater show about falling out of Western linear time and into Chinese ritual time

• November 2025: Workshop presentation of “Out of Time” at Harvard University, TDM, under mentorship by Stew Stewart

WRITING

FICTION

Slow Clap, Joyland Magazine, January 2023 (Winner of the Open Border Fiction Prize)
Watch List, Jellyfish Review, March 2020 (Nominated for Best Small Fictions 2020)

NON-FICTION + REPORTAGE

The Chinese Migrants of Chiang Mai, The Dial, December 2023
The Underrated Joy of Asking Directions, AFAR Magazine, August 2023
On the AAPI Narrative Lab x Harmony Labs, Narrative Initiative, December 2022
This Brooklyn Restaurant Has a Brilliant Model for Hiring and Supporting Immigrant Workers,
Back of House, February 2022
Whitney Hu’s Favorite Spots in Sunset Park, Curbed, April 2021
I Joined America at Its Worst, The Atlantic, November 2020
I’m 10 Minutes Away From Becoming a U.S. Citizen, The New York Times, July 2020
The 90-Year-Old Virtuoso Keeping Naxi Music Alive in China, Atlas Obscura, July 2020 
Lotus Pods and Jambalaya in Jianguomen: Memory and Change in Our Beijing Neighborhood,
Catapult, November 2016
Death, Beauty, and Bling: Ebony G. Paterson’s Dead Trees, No Home Journal, March 2016

PODCAST

”Chinese Cinderella” Episode, Spotify x Wonder Media Network, February 2022

CHAPBOOK

Informant
a collection of essays, prose, and illustrations,
published through Wesleyan University's student-run press. May 2012

THEATER

“Ascend!” is a play inspired from interviews and surveys with East Asian and AAPI women, centering on their (in)visibilities, joys, and traumas during the last two years of the pandemic. The play asks: what do you do when your art form stops giving you joy? How does one feel good in a body during a pandemic? The play premiered at The Tank in October 2021 and was supported by a City Artist Corps grant. Written, co-directed, and starring Amy Zhang with an ensemble, including drummer Wen-Ting Wu. Pictures: Joel Lee (IG: joellayy_)

“I certainly wanted to do something for Asian women on stage—and for our visibility in general—that I hadn’t seen before, and I wanted people to experience that.” —Amy Zhang

—Howlround Interview: Creating a Play from Real Asian Women’s Desires, Dreams, and Heartaches

FILM
 

Teaching and facilitating spaces of care + empowerment for youth and adults is a passion of mine. I’ve managed summer literature programs at Great Books Summer Program at Stanford University and their inaugural Asia program at Beijing University, creating cross-cultural activities for student immersion. I mentor students one-on-one, oversee and lead teams of volunteers and teachers, as well as create curriculums and spaces for creative writing, media-making, and civic engagement.

At Ping Chong + Company, a National Medal of Arts winning theater company, I worked closely with the Education Director to teach workshops and train teaching artists, and empowered kids to own their own life stories and tell them on stage.

Classes and workshops include:

• Sandbox (2022- ongoing): a six session intensive writing class and community for Asian diasporic writers, teaching craft tools from film and theater for prose writing. (Sign up for mailing list to be updated of upcoming classes!)

• Breathe + Bloom (2020-2021): a nourishing creative non-fiction workshop for Asian Americans to recharge during the pandemic.

• The Personal Is Political (2020): a week-long documentary intensive for Dalton School high school orientation, to help students process the current political and social climate

• Poetry and Prose for Socio-Emotional Learning (2020): I volunteered to create and lead a summer writing program for ESL third graders, for immigrant youth non-profit APEX For Youth

• Literary Journalism Workshop (2018): a week-long intensive on the craft of literary journalism for Great Books Summer Program at Stanford University

• Multicultural Voices in American Literature (2017): a literature and writing workshop for Great Books Summer Program at Beijing University