Sun Yung Shin

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The native form of this personal name is Shin Sun-yung. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals.
Sun Yung Shin
Sun Yung Shin
Born1974 (age 49–50)
Seoul, South Korea
NationalityAmerican
Korean name
Hangul
신선영
Revised RomanizationSin Seon-yeong
McCune–ReischauerSin Sŏnyŏng

Sun Yung Shin (born 1974) is a Korean American poet, writer, consultant, and educator living in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

She is the editor of "A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota" (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2016), author of "The Wet Hex" (Coffee House Press 2022), "Unbearable Splendor" (Coffee House Press 2016), Rough, and Savage (Coffee House Press, 2012), Skirt Full of Black (Coffee House Press, 2007), and the bilingual (English/Korean) illustrated children's book Cooper's Lesson (Children's Book Press, imprint of Lee & Low Books). She was an editor with Jane Jeong Trenka and Julia Chinyere Oparah for Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption (South End Press, 2006), the first international anthology on the politics of transracial adoption edited by transracial adoptees. Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption was released in a Korean-language edition by KoRoot Press in Seoul, South Korea, in 2012.[1]

Biography[edit]

Shin was born in Seoul, South Korea, and was adopted when she was 13 months during the second big wave of the adoption of Asian children.[2] She was adopted by a white couple and was raised and grew up in Chicago.[3][4][5]

She attended Boston University for one year and then transferred to Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota and graduated cum laude with a degree in English.[6] After graduating, she worked for a technology companies whose clients included United Health, The US Navy, and Pillsbury to pay off her college loans and pursue a master's degree.[6] While in the process of obtaining her master's degree in teaching from the University of St. Thomas, she took a course on adolescent literature from playwright John Fenn.[7] He liked a poem she wrote and took it home for his partner Jill Breckenridge to read. She loved it and encouraged Shin to continue writing poetry.[5] Afterwards, she became the poetry editor of the campus literary magazine for Macalester College. From 2001 to 2002, Shin was in SASE: The Write Place mentor program with Minnesota poet Mark Nowak.[8] Through the Loft's program, she was mentored by Wang Ping.[8]

Shin has worked teaching literature, media reform and creative writing at the Perpich Center for Arts Education. She also taught composition and creative writing at the University of Minnesota, Macalester College, Hamline University, University of St. Thomas, The College of St. Catherine, The Loft Literary Center and Intermedia Arts/SASE: The Write Place.[9] She taught English as second language and has been a guest artist in many inner city schools in the Minneapolis-St Paul. She was also involved in the now defunct Asian American Renaissance and as a board member on many other community organizations.[1]

Shin presents her work frequently in the Twin Cities, and her poems have appeared in journals such as Indiana Review, Swerve, Court Green, Mid-American Review, Sonora Review, Capilano Review and Xcp cross-cultural poetics.

Awards and honors[edit]

Shin won the Asian American Literary Award in 2008 for her book of poems Skirt Full of Black. Shin's essays and fiction are anthologized in Fiction on a Stick (Milkweed), Riding Shotgun (Borealis), Transforming a Rape Culture (Milkweed), Echoes Upon Echoes: New Korean American Writings (Temple University), The Encyclopedia Project Vol. 1, A-E, Vol. 2, F - K, and The Adoption Encyclopedia (Greenwood Publishing). She also received the Minnesota Book Award in 2017 for her book Unbearable Splendor.[10]

She is a recipient of grants and awards from the (Archibald) Bush Foundation, two time award recipient of Minnesota State Arts Board, Blacklock Nature Sanctuary, and The Loft Literary Center, and recipient of an artist's grant from the McKnight Foundation.[11] She is also a 2022 MacDowell Residency Fellow.[12]

Publications[edit]

Books Fiction in Anthologies
Title Year Title Year
Cooper's Lesson: 쿠퍼의 레슨 2004 "Asian American Writing" and "Cuttlefish" 2006
Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption 2006 The Woodcutter: A Retelling 2009
Skirt Full of Black 2007 Korean Cinema 2010
Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption [Korean Version] 2012 Isolette 2011
Rough, and Savage 2013 The Other Asterion 2015
A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota 2016 Valley, Uncanny 2015
Unbearable Splendor 2016 Women: Poetry: Migration 2016
The Wet Hex 2022 Jane, Jamestown, The Starving Time

Poems in journals[edit]

Essays / non-fiction in anthologies[edit]

  • "Harness" (Others Will Enter the Gates, New York, Print) (2014)

Essays in journals and other media[edit]

Poems in special editions and venues[edit]

Literary criticism[edit]

  • Human Acts (Star Tribune, by Han Kang) (January 13. 2017)

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b "Bio & Photos". 신 선 영 Sun Yung Shin. Retrieved May 18, 2021.
  2. ^ Laybourn, Wendy Marie (November 2018). "Being a Transnational Korean Adoptee, Becoming Asian American". Contexts. 17 (4): 30–35. doi:10.1177/1536504218812866. ISSN 1536-5042. S2CID 70348188.
  3. ^ "Bio & Photos". 신 선 영 Sun Yung Shin.
  4. ^ "Sun Yung Shin". Poetry Foundation. May 11, 2019. Retrieved May 11, 2019.
  5. ^ a b "SUN YUNG SHIN". Twin Cities. April 28, 2007. Retrieved May 11, 2019.
  6. ^ a b "Register". LinkedIn. Retrieved July 24, 2023.
  7. ^ M.A, Kelly Engebretson '99 (March 18, 2013). "A Conversation With Poet Sun Yung Chin '05 M.A." Newsroom | University of St. Thomas. Retrieved February 8, 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  8. ^ a b "SUN YUNG SHIN". Twin Cities. April 28, 2007. Retrieved February 8, 2022.
  9. ^ "Sun Yung Shin - Faculty and Staff - Hamline University". www.hamline.edu. Retrieved February 8, 2022.
  10. ^ "2017 Minnesota Book Award winners announced". MPR News. Retrieved February 7, 2022.
  11. ^ "Sun Yung Shin". More Than A Single Story. Retrieved February 7, 2022.
  12. ^ Wild, Stephi. "MacDowell Awards Fellowships for Fall-Spring to 136 Artists". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved February 7, 2022.

Sources[edit]

External links[edit]

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