Ching-In Chen

Assistant Professor

Ph.D, English (with concentration in Creative Writing; certificate in Women’s Studies), University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee
M.F.A., Writing for the Performing Arts and Creative Writing, University of California, Riverside
B.A., English and International Relations, Tufts University

Office Number: UW1-347
Email: chingin@uw.edu
Website: www.chinginchen.com

Teaching

I approach my classes as experimental laboratories where students are invited to explore various approaches and lineages to actively construct their own knowledges, with particular commitment to historically underrepresented voices and stories. I believe in pedagogy which enables students to test out their critical and creative thinking through concrete engagement with their peers and with those active in the field and wider community, helping them acquire important skills which will last beyond the space of our classroom.

Recent Courses Taught

BISIA 310 Creative Writing: Poetry
BISIA 311 Creative Writing: Prose
BISIA 401 Literary & Arts Journal
BISIA 410 Advanced Creative Writing Workshop
BCWRIT 510 Poetics Seminar: Cultural Change and Writing

Research/Scholarship

I am a cross-genre writer with a background in community organizing, specifically in Asian American communities in coalition with other communities of color and LGBTQIA* communities. My work participates in a lineage of documentary and speculative poetics, which uses documents and other historical evidence as material from which to imagine under-examined lives and investigate how various communities interact and inhabit space. Using strategies of juxtaposition and multi-voice collage, I utilize historical artifacts including photographs, newspaper articles, maps, city directory listings, immigration, birth and death records and as well as scholarly research and archaeological reports to look at shared community memories and erasures. I am currently working on Breathing in a Time of Disaster, an improvised choral performance, installation and speculative writing project focusing on the unit of breath in relation to ecological change and community wisdom.

Selected Publications

Books

• recombinant. Berkeley: Kelsey Street Press, 2017.
• The Heart’s Traffic: a novel in poems. Los Angeles: Arktoi Books/Red Hen Press, 2009.

Chapbooks

• Kundiman for Kin :: Information Retrieval for Monsters. Brooklyn: Portable Press @ Yo-Yo Labs.
• to make black paper sing. Berkeley: speCt! Books, 2019.

Works in Anthologies

• “Dear O,” Queer Nature: An Ecoqueer Poetry Anthology. (https://www.autumnhouse.org/books/queer-nature-a-poetry-anthology/) Michael Walsh, Ed. Autumn House Press, 2022.
• “Texas,” The Beautiful. Dana Teen Lomax, Ed. Gualala Arts, 2022.
• “inspector of journals makes introductions: Fan & Basket plot escape from Peabody Essex Museum.” Q&A – Voices from Queer Asian North America. Martin F. Manalansan IV, Alice Y. Hom, and Kale Bantigue Fajardo, Eds. Temple University Press, 2021.
• “Flood Fathers” and “Guest/Stalker,” NOMBONO: An Anthology of Speculative Poetry by BIPOC Creators. Akua Lezli Hope, Ed. Sundress Publications, 2020.
• “South in Hundreds (one hundred.),” “South in Hundreds (two hundred.),” “South in Hundreds (three hundred.),” “South in Hundreds (four hundred.),” “South in Hundreds (five hundred.),” and “Seller.” TWANG: a collection of art & writing from transgender, nonbinary & gender non-conforming folks in the south & midwest. Brody Parrish Craig, Ed, 2020.
• “Behind the Ballroom,” “Household Mutations,” “Returning to a Posted Notice Taped to the Door,” “Trying to Feel Human/Tomorrow,” and “Self-Portrait, house with no one Present.” We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics. Andrea Abi-Karam and Kay Gabriel, Eds. Nightboat, 2020.
• “How do you begin (another poetics),” Of Color: Poets’ Way of Making. The Operating System, 2019.
• “Milwaukee’s Pacific Heritage,” The Milwaukee Anthology. Cleveland, OH: Belt Publishing, 2019.
• “Arrestable,” Feminisms in Motion: A Decade of Intersectional Feminist Media. Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2018.
• “[as a space to occupy] crossing the source,” “hunting ancestors,” “a lit ghost,” and “various various.” Reading Queer: Poetry in a Time of Chaos. Tallahassee, FL: Anhinga Press, 2018.
• “Gender Identity and the Creative Writing Classroom.” Creative Writing Innovations. New York: Bloomsbury, 2017.
• “Saying My Name with Happiness.” How Dare We! Write: A Multicultural Creative Writing Discourse. Ann Arbor, MI: Modern History Press.
• Manifesto of Shame,” Resisting Arrest. Durham, NC: Jacar Press, 2016.

Works in Journals

• “Queer Poetry: a Zuihitsu;” “Love Letter to Dear Zuihitsu,” The Margins, Asian American Writers’ Workshop, 2022.
• “inside me, more family.” Concision Poetry Journal, 2022.
• “Inside Me, a Family,” Poem-A-Day, Academy of American Poets.
• “Archive Bereft of Words,” Interim: A Journal of Poetry and Poetics, 2021.
• “Inside me, another family,” and “Inside me, I write / a swarm of ants,” Kweli, 2021.
• “Gatha for Forest Walk / When No Father Arrives,” “Desert / Nine Days,” and “Park.” The Rupture, 2021.
• “Dumpling-Making Kin.” South Seattle Emerald.
• “Still Green,” “Pilgrimage,” “Flood Fathers,” “Overnight Holiday,” and “Emperor.” Blue Cactus Press.
• “Perfect Orange,” POETRY, 2019.
• “Spell for Safe passage,” POETRY, 2019.
• “after so many days fled from scattering mold,” “Tuning Fork Conversation,” Transtastic Tomorrows folio, Anomaly, 2019.
• “Spell for a Hole,” POETRY, 2019.
• “Breath for Guan Yin,” Spiral, 2019.
• “origins,” “yêu em dài lâu (me love you long time): draft”; “me long you love time: revision,” underbelly, 2019.
• “Sonata,” MARY: a Journal of New Writing, 2019.
• “(Hiding) Names,” In Praise of Polyphony folio, Broadsided Press, 2018.
• “Infinity Plus One,” “But There Are Limits,” “To Even Conceive Infinity, There Are Limits (process notes), Southeast Review, 2018.
• “Another Spell for Hole,” Unmargin, 2018.
• “Dear O,” “Lepus,” Rumpus, 2018.
• “With (prep.),” Best of Iron Horse Literary Review Poetry, 2018.
• “Day 15: Egg Song,” “Day 16: No Visitors Allowed,” “Day 17: Moneymaker Goat,” “Day 18: Melted Fans for Fees,” “Day 19: Image for Exposition,” Big Echo SF, 2018.
• “Spell for Safety,” Origins Journal, 2018.
• “Relatives,” “Trying to Feel Human Again,” Track//Four, 2018.
• “Self-Portrait, Belong,” “Self-Portrait, Opposite Reflection,” “Self-Portrait, Machine,” Tayo, 2018.