Ken Chen
Visiting Writer
Profile
Ken Chen is writing about his travels to the underworld to rescue his father and encountering those sent to the afterlife by colonialism. He is the recipient of the Yale Younger Poets Award for his book Juvenilia. He served as the Executive Director of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop from 2008 to 2019.
A recipient of fellowships from the Cullman Center at the NYPL, NEA, NYFA and Bread Loaf, Chen co-founded the cultural website Arts & Letters Daily and CultureStrike, a national arts organization dedicated to migrant justice. A graduate of Yale Law School, he successfully defended the asylum application of an undocumented Muslim high school student from Guinea detained by Homeland Security.