Michelle 

and Molly 

About m i c h e l l e

Michelle Chen is a poet, writer, and artist who lives for paper mail, warm zephyrs, and fried noodles, and who takes inspiration for her writing 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. As a first-generation immigrant, she has recently begun creatively reconciling the culture she was born into and the culture she currently resides in in order to redefine and redraw the boundaries of her identity.  In her free time she enjoys bowling, frolicking, and observing nature both human and otherwise. She is the first-prize winner of the 2015 Knopf Poetry prize, the 2015 Critical Junior Poet's Award, the 2015 Norm Strung Youth Writing Competition, the 2015 Prospero Prize, the 2016 New York Browning Society High School Poetry Award, and the ZO 2016 Teen Expo in Poetry. She has also been honored by Foyle Young Poets, YoungArts, the erbacce-prize for poetry, the Mary Ballard Poetry Chapbook Prize, the Scottish Mental Health and Arts Film Festival Writing Competition, the Prospero Prize, the Smith College Poetry Prize, the Ploughshares Emerging Writers Contest, and the Lancaster Writing Award for Criticism. She has performed at Lincoln Center, the National Arts Club, and the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Her work has been honored both regionally and nationally in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and has appeared or will appear in Prairie Schooner, the Sharkpack Poetry Review, The Critical Pass Review, Across the Margin, Transcendence, Alexandria Quarterly, Ember, On Spec, Polyphony HS, Pif Magazine, The Blueshift Journal, and elsewhere. She has attended summer writing workshops at Amherst and the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio on full scholarships, and she is a senior at Hunter College High School in New York City. Creative themes she is passionate about include minority perspectives, mental health, and the feminine divine, and she is a part of Girls Write Now for the supportive and inspiring community.

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About m o l l y

Molly is a Associate Editor of Digital Innovation at Refinery29.

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