Barbara Tran (born 1968) is an American-born

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

living in Canada. She received a

Pushcart Prize The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize published by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are ...

in 1997.

Career

Born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, Tran received her BA from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

and her MFA from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. She coedited the anthology ''Watermark: Vietnamese American Poetry and Prose'' (Asian American Writers' Workshop, 1998) and guest edited ''Viet Nam: Beyond the Frame'', a special issue of ''

Michigan Quarterly Review The ''Michigan Quarterly Review'' is an American literary magazine founded in 1962 and published at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The quarterly (known as "MQR" for short) publishes art, essays, interviews, memoirs, fiction, poetry, and ...

'' (Fall 2004). She is the recipient of a

Lannan Foundation The Lannan Literary Awards are a series of awards and literary fellowships given out in various fields by the Lannan Foundation. Established in 1989, the awards are meant "to honor both established and emerging writers whose work is of exceptional ...

Writing Residency,

Bread Loaf Writers' Conference The Middlebury Bread Loaf Writers' Conference is an author's conference held every summer at the Bread Loaf Inn, near Bread Loaf Mountain, east of Middlebury, Vermont. Founded in 1926, it has been called by ''The New Yorker'' "the oldest and most p ...

Scholarship,

MacDowell Colony MacDowell is an artist's residency program in Peterborough, New Hampshire, United States, founded in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, pianist and philanthropist Marian MacDowell. Prior to July 2020, it was known as the MacDowell ...

Fellowship, and

, and is featured in filmmaker Yunah Hong's documentary ''Between the Lines: Asian American Women's Poetry''. Her poems have appeared in the ''Women's Review of Books'', ''

Ploughshares ''Ploughshares'' is an American literary journal established in 1971 by DeWitt Henry and Peter O'Malley in The Plough and Stars, an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1989, ''Ploughshares'' has been based at Emerson College in Boston. ...

'', and ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'', as well as in the

Williams College Museum of Art The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) is a college-affiliated art museum in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It is located on the campus of Williams College, and is close to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) and the Clark Ar ...

exhibit ''The Moon Is Broken: Photography from Poetry, Poetry from Photography''. Tran's first poetry collection, ''In the Mynah Bird's Own Words'' (Tupelo Press, 2002), was selected by

Robert Wrigley Robert Wrigley (born 1951 in East St. Louis, Illinois) is an American poet and educator. Biography In 1971 Wrigley was inducted into the army, filing for discharge as a conscientious objector. He received his M.F.A. in Poetry from the Universi ...

as the winner of Tupelo Press's chapbook competition, and was a

PEN/Open Book PEN/Open Book (known as the Beyond Margins Award through 2009) is a program intended to foster racial and ethnic diversity within the literary and publishing communities, and works to establish access for diverse literary groups to the publishing i ...

Award finalist. In fall 2015, Tran was a writer-in-residence at

Hedgebrook Hedgebrook is a rural retreat for women writers on Whidbey Island, Washington, founded in 1988. Hedgebrook's artist-in-residence program accepts up to 80 writers each year, who spend two to four weeks in residence working on their diverse writi ...

. She lives in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

Awards and honors

Tran is a recipient of a Research and Creation grant and a Professional Development for Artists grant from the

Canada Council The Canada Council for the Arts (french: Conseil des arts du Canada), commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown corporation established in 1957 as an arts council of the Government of Canada. It acts as the federal government's principal i ...

, as well as a Literary Creation Project grant from the

Ontario Arts Council The Ontario Arts Council (OAC) is a publicly-funded Canadian organization in the province of Ontario whose purpose is to foster the creation and production of art for the benefit of all Ontarians. Based in Toronto, OAC was founded in 1963 by On ...

. She was longlisted for the 2018 CBC Nonfiction Prize.

Works

* * * * *Reviews of ''In the Mynah Bird's Own Words'': * * * *

Award finalist. * * * * *

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Tran, Barbara 1968 births American expatriates in Canada New York University alumni Columbia University School of the Arts alumni Living people Poets from New York City American women poets 21st-century American poets 21st-century American women writers