Victoria Chang
Victoria Chang is an American poet, writer, editor, and critic. She has experimented with different styles of writing, including writing poems shaped in 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 three books for children.
Early life and education
Victoria Chang was born in a Taiwanese and Chinese 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, won the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry. Her second poetry collection is Salvinia Molesta. 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 longlisted 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. She was featured in the .
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 and Electric Literature.
In 2024, Chang's collection of poems, With My Back to the World, was published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in the U.S. and Corsair Books in the U.K. It received the Forward Prize in Poetry and was a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, and the California Book Award.
She also writes picture books for children and middle grade novels, and her picture book, Is Mommy? published by Beach Lane Books 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, and Eureka in 2026 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux Children’s Books.
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, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 2025, 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
- 2003 Bread Loaf Writers' Conference Scholarship
- 2005 Sewanee Writers' Conference Fellowship
- 2005 Bread Loaf Writers' Conference Fellowship
- 2007 Ploughshares Cohen Award
- Circle, finalist for the PEN Center West Book Award
- Circle, Winner of the Association for Asian American Studies Book award
- Salvinia Molesta Finalist for the 2008 Commonwealth California Book Award
- 2014 The Boss winner of a 2013 Commonwealth California Book Award
- 2014 The Boss winner of a 2014 PEN Center USA Literary Award
- IS MOMMY? named a New York Times Notable Book in 2015
- 2020 Lannan Foundation Residency Fellowship
- 2020 Frank Sanchez Book Award
- 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 OBIT won the Los Angeles Times Poetry Book Prize
- OBIT was longlisted for a National Book Award for Poetry
- OBIT won the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry
- OBIT was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry
- 2021 OBIT won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for poetry
- 2021 OBIT was a finalist for the Griffin International Poetry Prize
- The Trees Witness Everything named a Best Book of the Year by the New Yorker, The Guardian, and Electric Lit
- 2023 Chowdhury International Prize in Literature
- Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief, was a finalist for the Firecracker Awards
- With My Back to the World received the Forward Prize in Poetry for Best Poetry Collection in 2024
- With My Back to the World was a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award in 2025
- With My Back to the World was a finalist for the PEN Jean Stein Award in 2025
- With My Back to the World was a finalist for the California Book Award in 2025
- National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 2025
Published works