BIOGRAPHY
Writing is an Act of Connection
Serena W. Lin cuts her teeth on monsters, myths, and magic. Her short(er) stories have appeared in New Moons Anthology: Contemporary Writing by North American Muslims (forthcoming October 2021, Red Hen Press), Hyperallergic, Drunken Boat/Anomaly, cream city review, Hyphen, Northern New England Review, among others. She is working on a first novel, a short story collection, and dreams about a graphic novel with illustrator Sheika Lugtu. She writes fiction, poetry, essays, plays, radio plays, and blogs at drunkenwhispers.wordpress.com.
Serena received her MFA from Rutgers-Newark as a Truman Capote fellow and is a VONA alum. Her playwriting work was with the David Henry Hwang Writer's Institute and TeAda Productions.
BIPOC Writing Party
Serena co-founded BIPOC Writing Party with Faith Adiele in 2020.
The following workshops and residences have supported her work:
The MacDowell Colony
Ucross Foundation with aid from The Whiting Foundation
PLAYA
Brush Creek Foundation
Kimmel Harding Nelson Center
Ragdale
Anderson Center at Tower View with aid from Jerome Foundation Emerging Artist Fellowship
Virginia Center for the Creative Arts
Hewnoaks Artist Colony
Hedgebrook
VONA
Sewanee Writers Conference
Clarion West (Plague Class of 2020 and Class of 2021)
Justice does not flow from the law. Organize. Act collectively.
Serena practiced law for nearly a decade in Los Angeles. She served as a Public Defender and then as a community lawyer focused on environmental justice, racial justice, economic justice, community economic development, nonprofits, land use, transportation, and affordable housing. She obtained her JD from UC Berkeley.
Poetry is life.
She resides in Oakland and hails (via starship) from Brooklyn, Los Angeles, DC, Cupertino, and San Jose.