Emily.X.R Pan author page

Emily X.R. Pan biography

Emily X.R. Pan is a Taiwanese American author of young adult fiction and a creative writing lecturer. She studied marketing and international business at New York University’s Stern School of Business before completing an MFA in fiction at the university’s Creative Writing Program, where she was a Goldwater Fellow and editor-in-chief of Washington Square Review. She subsequently became the founding editor-in-chief of Bodega Magazine and has taught creative writing at New York University, Harvard University and Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is also a member of the creative writing faculty at The New School.

Her debut novel, The Astonishing Colour of After, was published in the UK by Hachette in March 2018. It follows Leigh Chen Sanders, a 16-year-old girl who travels to Taiwan following her mother’s death and encounters a mysterious red bird while investigating her family’s past. The novel received an Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature Honor and a Walter Honor Award. It was also shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, longlisted for the Carnegie Medal and included in Time magazine’s list of the 100 best young adult books of all time.

Pan co-created the online young adult fiction anthology Foreshadow with fellow author Nova Ren Suma. The project developed into Foreshadow: Stories to Celebrate the Magic of Reading and Writing YA, published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers in October 2020. The collection contains 13 short stories alongside essays and discussions about creative writing.

Her second novel, An Arrow to the Moon, draws on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Chinese mythology. It follows Hunter Yee and Luna Chang, two teenagers whose developing relationship is complicated by a feud between their families and unexplained supernatural events. Published in the UK by Hachette on 12 April 2022, the novel was selected for NPR’s Best Books of 2022 and became a finalist for the 2023 Locus Award for Best Young Adult Novel.