Emily X. R. Pan

Pan was born in Illinois and is the only child of Taiwanese parents who immigrated to the United States. Her father is a professor at The College of New Jersey and her mother is a piano and guzheng teacher. She attempted to write her first novel in second grade and ultimately finished her first novel for a sixth grade assignment at school. By 15, she was querying literary agents to pursue publication. Pan studied International Marketing at NYU Stern, where she graduated a semester early. After graduation, she worked in digital advertising before getting accepted into NYU's Creative Writing program, where she became editor-in-chief at the Washington Square Review. In 2010, while in grad school, she developed the idea for what would become her debut novel and kept rewriting and putting it aside in favor of different manuscripts. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.