Muriel Leung is an American writer. Her work includes the poetry collection Bone Confetti, which won the 2015 Noemi Press Book Award[1] and Imagine Us, The Swarm, which received the Nightboat’s Poetry Prize.[2] She has received multiple writing fellowships, and her work was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.[3]

Early life

Leung grew up in Richmond Hills, New York. Her first language is Cantonese. She learned English in elementary school.[4] On her mother's side, she has family members who were garment workers on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Her father emigrated to the United States from Hong Kong under refugee status, and went on to own a restaurant. She received her undergraduate degree from Sarah Lawrence College.[5]

Career

While working on her MFA at Louisiana State University, Leung completed her poetry collection Bone Confetti, which won the 2015 Noemi Press Book Award.[5][6] Noemi Press published Bone Confetti the following year.[7] The collection, which is divided into four sections, contemplates grief, loss, trauma and queerness.[8] The book discusses the death of Leung's father, who died of stage 4 pancreatic cancer.[9] The book also plays with the Orpheus and Eurydice myth.[10] A review about the book in Hyperallergic states, "The poems can be grisly, gothic, and obsessed, not to mention quirky and disturbing. As much as you may suspect that Leung is possessed, you also feel that she is in control of every word she places on the page. The poems can be cool and feverish. They can be funny, odd, opaque. We cannot see through them to her, and why should we?"[11]

Also in 2016, Fairy Tale Review nominated her poem "How to Fall in Love in a Time of Unnamable Disaster" for a Pushcart Prize.[12]

In a review of her poem "I was a house / I was a witch " for the Ploughshares blog, John Rufo said that the poem "functions to present intermingling transformations that perform whatever an opposite of distillation forecloses".[13]

Leung's work often addresses identity.[4][9]

She is a co-host of the Blood-Jet Writing Hour poetry podcast[14] along with American Book Award winner Rachelle Cruz.[15]

Leung received fellowships from Kundiman and Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation.[16][17]

She is a co-editor at Apogee Journal and a contributing editor at Bettering American Poetry.[18][19] She served as Assistant Editor of New Delta Review.[20]

About her forthcoming collection, Imagine Us, The Swarm, Kazim Ali wrote:

“Muriel Leung’s Imagine Us, The Swarm offers seven powerful texts that form a constellation of voices, forms, and approaches to confront loneliness, silence, and death. In a varied range of physical and poetic shapes and typography, Leung creates a lyric informed by theory, autobiography, and essay. One finds in the margins of this book deep dimensional portals of thought that resonate wildly. Wise and inventive, this book leads one deep into psychic regions oft unplumbed. Its rigors are complex and yet a reader feels nothing so much as invited in, and the rewards are plentiful and profound.”

Personal life

Leung identifies as an “Asian American poet.”[4] She is a doctoral student in Creative Writing at USC and resides in Los Angeles.[21][22]

Bibliography

  • Bone Confetti, Noemi Press, 2016, ISBN 9781934819609 [23][24]
  • Imagine Us, the Swarm, Nightboat Books, 2021

References

  1. ↑ "2015 Winners of the Noemi Press Book Award for Poetry | Noemi Press". Retrieved 2019-04-26.
  2. ↑ "Announcing Nightboat's Poetry Prize Winner!". Nightboat Books. 2020-02-19. Retrieved 2020-06-07.
  3. ↑ Villareal, Vanessa Angélica (2017-04-15). "Vanessa Angélica Villareal on Muriel Leung, Lara Mimosa Montes, and Safiya Sinclair". The Operating System. Retrieved 2019-03-05.
  4. 1 2 3 Segal, Corinne (2016-02-29). "Why grief is political for poet Muriel Leung". PBS NewsHour. Retrieved 2019-02-26.
  5. 1 2 Leung, Muriel (2017-11-14). "Two Cities, Fairy Tales, & a Marathon Sprint: An Interview with Muriel Leung". WEIRD SISTER (Interview). Interviewed by Maria Vallarta. Retrieved 2019-03-04.
  6. ↑ Yau, John (2016-12-11). "Muriel Leung Wants to Remember the Color of Her Blood". Hyperallergic. Retrieved 2019-02-26.
  7. ↑ "Fiction Book Review: Bone Confetti by Muriel Leung". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 2019-02-26.
  8. ↑ Eguchi, Marilynn (12 October 2017). "BONE CONFETTI by Muriel Leung". Cleaver Magazine. Retrieved 2019-03-04.
  9. 1 2 Leung, Muriel. "Gestured to and not yet quite: an interview with Muriel Leung". The Common (Interview). Interviewed by Flavia Martinez. Retrieved 2019-03-04.
  10. ↑ Leung, Muriel (2016-12-06). "12 or 20 (second series) questions with Muriel Leung". rob mclennan's blog. Interviewed by Rob McLennan. Retrieved 2019-03-04.
  11. ↑ "Muriel Leung Wants to Remember the Color of Her Blood". Hyperallergic. 2016-12-11. Retrieved 2020-06-07.
  12. ↑ "Our 2016 Pushcart Nominations – Fairy Tale Review". Retrieved 2019-03-04.
  13. ↑ Rufo, John. ""I was a house / I was a witch" : Muriel Leung's "A House Fell Down on All of Us."". Ploughshares. Retrieved 2019-03-04.
  14. ↑ Worra, Bryan Thao (2017-02-09). "[Poet Spotlight] Muriel Leung". On The Other Side Of The Eye (blog). Retrieved 2019-03-04.
  15. ↑ Leung, Muriel (2018-08-14). "Exciting news! American Book Award winner (and my all around hero) Rachelle Cruz (@rawqeli) and I are rebooting @TheBloodJet podcast with an episode where we talk writing the first book, writing life/work balance, and our mamas helping us sell our lit wares. Have a listen!https://twitter.com/TheBloodJet/status/1029352372324192256 …". @murmurshewrote. Retrieved 2019-03-09.
  16. ↑ Leung, Muriel. "Muriel Leung, Pt. 1: What you say next—I am red / in the face. I will and can harp on a spleen". Kundiman (Interview). Interviewed by Cristiana Balk. Retrieved 2019-03-04.
  17. ↑ "AWP: Conference Schedule". awpwriter.org. Retrieved 2019-03-04.
  18. ↑ Leung, Muriel (2018-01-24). "Behind The Editor's Desk: Muriel Leung". Women Who Submit (Interview). Interviewed by Lauren Eggert-Crowe. Retrieved 2019-03-04.
  19. ↑ "From the Stacks: Muriel Leung". Poetry Center. 2016-06-10. Retrieved 2019-03-04.
  20. ↑ Leung, Muriel. "muriel leung". Tenderloin. Interviewed by DeWitt Brinson. Retrieved 2019-03-05.
  21. ↑ "Students > Ph.D. in Creative Writing & Literature > USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences". dornsife.usc.edu. Retrieved 2019-02-26.
  22. ↑ Foster, Sesshu (24 October 2018). "Los Angeles, City of Poets". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 2019-03-04.
  23. ↑ Yau, John; Vartanian, Hrag; Almino, Elisa Wouk; Glover, Michael; Almino, Elisa Wouk; Packard, Cassie; Liscia, Valentina Di (2016-12-11). "Muriel Leung Wants to Remember the Color of Her Blood". Hyperallergic. Retrieved 2020-05-22.
  24. ↑ "Why grief is political for poet Muriel Leung". PBS NewsHour. 2016-02-29. Retrieved 2020-05-22.
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