Sun Yung Shin

Sun Yung Shin (born 1974) is a Korean American poet, writer, consultant, and educator living in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

She is the editor of A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2016). Her books of poetry include The Wet Hex (Coffee House Press, 2022), Unbearable Splendor (Coffee House Press, 2016), Rough, and Savage (Coffee House Press, 2012), and Skirt Full of Black (Coffee House Press, 2007). She co-authored the children's book of poems Revolutions are Made of Love (Carolrhoda Books, imprint of Lerner Publishing Group, 2025) and the bilingual (English/Korean) illustrated children's book Cooper's Lesson (Children's Book Press, imprint of Lee & Low Books, 2004). She was an editor with Jane Jeong Trenka and Julia Chinyere Oparah for Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption (South End Press, 2006), the first international anthology on the politics of transracial adoption edited by transracial adoptees. Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption was released in a Korean-language edition by KoRoot Press in Seoul, South Korea, in 2012.

Biography Shin was born in Seoul, South Korea, and was adopted when she was 13 months during the second big wave of the adoption of Asian children. She was adopted by a white couple and was raised and grew up in Chicago.

She attended Boston University for one year and then transferred to Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota and graduated cum laude with a degree in English. After graduating, she worked for a technology companies whose clients included United Health, The US Navy, and Pillsbury to pay off her college loans and pursue a master's degree. He liked a poem she wrote and took it home for his partner Jill Breckenridge to read. She loved it and encouraged Shin to continue writing poetry. Through the Loft's program, she was mentored by Wang Ping. She taught English as second language and has been a guest artist in many inner city schools in the Minneapolis-St Paul. She was also involved in the now defunct Asian American Renaissance and as a board member on many other community organizations.

She is a recipient of grants and awards from the (Archibald) Bush Foundation, two time award recipient of Minnesota State Arts Board, Blacklock Nature Sanctuary, and The Loft Literary Center, and recipient of an artist's grant from the McKnight Foundation. She is also a 2022 MacDowell Residency Fellow.

In 2023, she won the Carter G. Woodson Book Award (Elementary Level) for Where We Come From.

Publications

Poems in journals A Mortal Fantasy (Axe Factory Review, Issue 12, Print) (Fall, 2000) The Wolveish Forage (DUSIE, Online) (July, 2017) Immigrant Song (Poetry Foundations, Online) (June, 2017) Woven Through with Snakes (The Cultural Society, Online) (June, 2017)

Essays / non-fiction in anthologies "Harness" (Others Will Enter the Gates, New York, Print) (2014)

Essays in journals and other media Afterword for Asian/American Curricular Epistemicide: From Being Excluded to Becoming Model Minority (Sense Publishing, The Netherlands, Print) (2016)

Poems in special editions and venues Empty Ring, Nest Fire (Poem-a-Day, Academy of American Poets) (November 23, 2015)

Literary criticism Human Acts (Star Tribune, by Han Kang) (January 13. 2017)