Celeste Ng

Celeste Ng ( ; ; born July 30, 1980 ) is an American writer and novelist. Her short stories have been published in a variety of literary journals. Her most recent novel, Our Missing Hearts, was released in 2022.

Early life and education Celeste Ng was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her mother was a chemist who taught at Cleveland State University.

Career

Ng received the Pushcart Prize in 2012 for her story "Girls, At Play". Her fiction has appeared in One Story, TriQuarterly, and Subtropics. Her essays have appeared in Kenyon Review Online, The Millions, and elsewhere. Ng taught writing at the University of Michigan and at Grub Street in Boston. Ng also was an editor of blogs at the website Fiction Writers Review for three years. The novel had four drafts and one revision before completion, which took six years. Working on it, Ng said she drew upon her own experiences of racism as well as her family and friends. The book, which the Los Angeles Times called an "excellent first novel about family, love, and ambition," won Amazon's book of the year award in 2014 and was a New York Times Notable Book of 2014. It has been translated into 15 languages.

Ng's second novel, Little Fires Everywhere, is set in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and follows two families, one a mother and daughter, that challenge the boundaries and culture of the town. It follows a 12 year-old boy of Chinese descent named Bird who rediscovers his dissident mother's art. The novel released in October 2022.

Personal life As of 2014, Ng resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband and son.

In 2018, when the American government separated the children and parents of undocumented immigrant families, Ng used her Twitter account to call attention to the policy. Ng and a group of other writers auctioned naming rights of future characters in their books. The goal was to raise money for Immigrant Families Together, a volunteer group dedicated to reuniting migrant families.

Published works Novels

Anthology (featured)

Anthology (as editor)