Lauren Hilgers finished six chapters of her book Patriot Number One: American Dreams in Chinatown during her time as a MacDowell Fellow. The book, a work of nonfiction, follows a group of recent Chinese immigrants living in Flushing, Queens and was released in 2018. Hilgers spent six years living in China from 2006 to 2012 and her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, the NYT Magazine, and others.
Patriot Number One was named one of the best books of 2018 by New York Times Critics, Wall Street Journal, Kirkus Reviews, Christian Science Monitor, San Francisco Chronicle, and was a finalist for the PEN Jacqueline Bograd Weld Biography Award and shortlisted for the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize.
