Sally Wen Mao is the author of three books of poetry: The Kingdom of Surfaces (Graywolf Press, 2023), a finalist for the Maya Angelou Book Award; Oculus (Graywolf Press, 2019), a finalist for the 2020 Los Angeles Book Prize in Poetry; and Mad Honey Symposium (Alice James Books, 2014). Her debut short story collection, Ninetails: Nine Tales, was named a Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy Book of 2024 by Elle Magazine, The Washington Post, Electric Literature, and others.
Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, A Public Space, The Believer, Harper’s Bazaar, The Washington Post, and others. The recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a Cullman fellowship, a Shearing fellowship, and two Pushcart Prizes, Mao lives and teaches at Baruch College in New York City.
While at MacDowell, Mao drafted much of her novel Sally Forth, Sad Girl! (Viking). It is the second half of a two-book deal. She found new threads to follow, solidly finding herself on steady ground as she continues to write. The novel-in-progress has earned her a faculty research fellowship at the Asian American/Asian Research Institute at CUNY.
Portrait by Jess X Snow
