Visiting Writers Series presents YA & middle-grade author Kelly Yang

About the event

Kelly Yang is the New York Times bestselling author of Front Desk, winner of the 2019 Asian Pacific American Award for Children’s Literature, Parachutes–YA debut novel, May 2020, Harpercollins–and Three Keys–Front Desk Sequel, Sept 2020, Scholastic. Front Desk is Kelly’s award-winning middle grade debut novel about a 10 year old Chinese American immigrant girl who manages the front desk of a motel while her parents clean the rooms. Front Desk was awarded the 2019 Asian Pacific American Award for Literature, the Parents’ Choice Gold Medal, is the 2019 Global Read Aloud, and has earned numerous other honors including being named an Amazon Best Book of the Year, a Washington Post Best Book of the Year, a Kirkus Best Book of the Year, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, a NPR Best Book of the Year, and a Publisher’s Weekly Best Book of the Year.

Kelly immigrated to America when she was 6 years old and grew up in Southern California, where she and her parents worked in three different motels. She eventually left the motels and went to college at the age of 13 and law school at the age of 17. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley, where she majored in Political Science, and Harvard Law School. After law school, she gave up law to pursue her passion of writing and teaching children writing. She is the founder of The Kelly Yang Project (kellyyang.edu.hk), a leading writing and debating program for kids in Asia. As a writing teacher for 13 years, Kelly helped thousands of children find their voice and become better writers and more powerful speakers. Before turning to fiction, she was also a columnist for the South China Morning Post for many years. Her writing has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic. She has three children and splits her time between Hong Kong and San Francisco, California.

We are grateful to our collaborators for Kelly Yang’s visit: WSU-Vancouver Office of Equity and Diversity; WSU-Vancouver Office of Student Equity and Outreach; WSU-Vancouver Office of Academic Affairs; WSU-Vancouver College of Arts and Sciences; WSU-Tri-Cities Writing Center; WSU Common Reading Program; ASWSU; Landescapes, The Student Literary Journal.