Emily X.R. Pan is a

New York Times Bestselling ''The New York Times'' Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. John Bear, ''The #1 New York Times Best Seller: intriguing facts about the 484 books that have been #1 New York Times ...

American author of

young adult fiction Young adult fiction (YA) is a category of fiction written for readers from 12 to 18 years of age. While the genre is primarily targeted at adolescents, approximately half of YA readers are adults. The subject matter and genres of YA correlate ...

, best known for her debut novel ''The Astonishing Color of After''.

Personal life

Pan was born in

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

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 The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) is a public university in Ewing Township, New Jersey. It is part of New Jersey's public system of higher education. Established in 1855 as the New Jersey State Normal School, TCNJ was the first normal school, or ...

and her mother is a piano and

guzheng The zheng () or gu zheng (), is a Chinese plucked zither. The modern guzheng commonly has 21, 25, or 26 strings, is long, and is tuned in a major pentatonic scale. It has a large, resonant soundboard made from ''Paulownia'' wood. Other co ...

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 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 ...

, 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 ''Washington Square Review'' (usually shortened to ''ON SQU'') is a nationally distributed literary magazine that publishes stories, poems, essays and reviews, many of which are later reprinted in annual anthologies. It is the graduate equival ...

. 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 Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

Career

Pan's debut novel, ''The Astonishing Color of After'', was published by

Little, Brown Little, Brown and Company is an American publishing company founded in 1837 by Charles Coffin Little and James Brown in Boston. For close to two centuries it has published fiction and nonfiction by American authors. Early lists featured Emily D ...

in March 2018 and debuted on the New York Times Bestseller List at #10. The novel follows 15-year old Leigh, who deals with her mother's recent death by suicide through traveling to Taiwan and meeting her maternal grandparents. Believing that her mother has been turned into a great red bird, she tries to find clues in her family history to uncover her mother's secrets. Pan wrote the novel as a tribute to her grandmother, inspired by her life in colonial Taiwan. Originally it was planned to be historical fiction, set in 1927, and span over 40 years of a Taiwanese woman's life, but Pan ultimately opted for a contemporary setting. To write the novel, Pan traveled to Taiwan for research, and rewrote the novel over a period of seven years. Together with fellow author

Nova Ren Suma Nova Ren Suma is an American #1 New York Times best selling author of young adult novels. Her best-known work is ''The Walls Around Us''. Her novels have twice been finalists for the Edgar Award for Best Young Adult from Mystery Writers of Americ ...

, Pan is the co-founder of ''Foreshadow: A Serial Anthology'', a monthly online anthology for young adult short stories, which was realized via the crowdfunding site Indiegogo in August 2018. Her second novel, ''An Arrow to the Moon'', was released in April 2022. It was named to

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's Best Books of 2022 and

The Horn Book ''The Horn Book Magazine'', founded in Boston in 1924, is the oldest bimonthly magazine dedicated to reviewing children's literature. It began as a "suggestive purchase list" prepared by Bertha Mahony Miller and Elinor Whitney Field, proprietres ...

's Fanfare list of the best of 2022, and was a 2023

Locus Award The Locus Awards are an annual set of literary awards voted on by readers of the science fiction and fantasy magazine ''Locus'', a monthly magazine based in Oakland, California. The awards are presented at an annual banquet. In addition to the pl ...

Finalist.

Awards

Won * 2019 Asian/Pacific American Award for Young Adult Literature *2019 Walter Honor Award * 2020 Lincoln Award Nominated * 2018

Los Angeles Times Book Prize Since 1980, the ''Los Angeles Times'' has awarded a set of annual book prizes. The Prizes currently have nine categories: biography, current interest, fiction, first fiction (the Art Seidenbaum Award added in 1991), history, mystery/thriller ( ...

for Young Adult Literature * 2018

Goodreads Choice Award The Goodreads Choice Awards is a yearly award program, first launched on Goodreads in 2009. Winners are determined by users voting on books that Goodreads has nominated or books of their choosing, released in the given year. Most books that Good ...

for Young Adult Fiction and for Debut Author

Bibliography

* ''An Arrow to the Moon'', 2022 * ''Foreshadow: Stories to Celebrate the Magic of Reading and Writing YA'' * ''The Astonishing Color of After'', 2018

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pan, Emily X.R. Living people American women writers of young adult literature 21st-century American women writers 21st-century American novelists Year of birth missing (living people) DC Comics people New York University Stern School of Business alumni 21st-century Taiwanese women writers