Michelle Chen takes inspiration from the events that occur in and around her home, New York City, though her birthplace is Singapore and she hopes to return and visit someday. Her work appears in Prairie Schooner, Deep Wild, Kinsman Quarterly: Winds of Asia, The Evergreen Review, The Statesman, and elsewhere. Her writing has been recognized by Ploughshares Emerging Writers, the City College of New York, Brooklyn Public Library, and Penguin Random House, among others. She is an alumni of Girls in Icy Fjords, the Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship, Girls Write Now, the Juniper Institute for Young Writers, and the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio with the support of the National Society of Arts and Letters. At Stony Brook University she received the Best Masters Essay Prize, Distinguished Travel Award, and AAPI Mentorship Travel Grant, and is currently a Master’s student at NYU who enjoys presenting at research conferences, modeling, and performance, while getting less ice and less sugar in her winter melon milk tea. You can follow her collegiate book blog at https://silkwormreading.blogspot.com and on Instagram @michmashedpotatoes.