Brian Leung
Kentucky, United States
Member Since: 09/02/2008
Brian's second novel, Take Me Home, earned a starred review in Kirkus reviews. It is set in 1885 Wyoming and is centered around Adele (Addie) Maine, a determined, feisty young woman who leaves Kentucky to join her brother in homesteading. Not long after her arrival, Addie is confronted by something wholly new to her, Chinese people. Indeed, the novel is backgrounded by the historical event of a riot in which twenty-eight Chinese coal miners were massacred in Rock Springs. A French edition was published in 2013 as Seuls le ciel et la terre (Albin Michel) .
2007 saw the publication of his first novel, Lost Men with a French edition following in 2008. Subsequent to the French publication, he was a guest of Festival America in Vincennes, France. Lost Men amplifies the best qualities of his short fiction and about which Publisher's Weekly writes "Leung gingerly reacquaints an estranged father and son who travel through China in this sagacious and lyrical debut novel." An Italian edition was published in 2009.
Brian's Third novel, Ivy vs. Dogg: With a Cast of Thousands! was published in 2019 by C&R Press.
Brian’s fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in Story, Crazyhorse, Grain, Gulf Coast, Kinesis, The Barcelona Review, Mid-American Review, Salt Hill, Gulf Stream, River City, Runes, The Bellingham Review, Hyphen, Velocity, The Connecticut Review, Blithe House Quarterly, Indiana Review, Crab Orchard Review, Crowd, and in the short story anthology The Habit of Art. He is also the co-author of the non-fiction humor title, Not Another Feel Good Singles Book.
The recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including an Asian American Literary Award and a Lambda Award for Mid-Career Novelist, Brian earned his B.A. and MA. at California State University, and an M.F.A from Indiana University. Until 2020 he served as Director of Creative Writing at Purdue University where he is a Professor.
Website: readbrianleung.net
Twitter Username: @WriteLeungWrite
Publications
- Ivy vs. Dogg: With a Cast of Thousands! , C&R Press
- Lost Men: a novel , Random House
- Take Me Home: a novel , HarperCollins
Awards
- Asian American Literary Award for fiction
- Willa Award for historical fiction
- Lambda Literary Award for a Mid-Career Novelist
- President's Award for Outstanding Scholarship, Research, or Creative Activity
Employment
- Assistant Professor at CSU Northridge
- Director of Creative Writing at University of Louisville ( - July 2014)
- Director of Creative Writing at Purdue University (August 2014 - )
Degrees
- Bachelor of Arts in English from CSULA
- Master of Arts in English from CSULA
- Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Indiana University
Genres of Interest
Fiction, Creative nonfiction, Poetry