Sun Yung Shin

Thank you to Sun Yung Shin, a self-proclaimed poetry evangelist, for being our inaugural guest on the podcast!

신 선 영 Sun Yung Shin was born in Seoul, Korea and was raised in the Chicago area. She is a poet, writer, and cultural worker. She is the editor of What We Hunger For: Refugee and Immigrant Stories on Food and Family (2021) and of A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota, author of poetry collections The Wet Hex (winner of the Midland Authors Society Award for Poetry and finalist for a Minnesota Book Award) Unbearable Splendor (finalist for the 2017 PEN USA Literary Award for Poetry, winner of the 2016 Minnesota Book Award for poetry); Rough, and Savage; and Skirt Full of Black (winner of the 2007 Asian American Literary Award for poetry), co-editor of Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption, and author of bilingual illustrated book for children Cooper’s Lesson and picture book Where We Come From, co-written with Diane Wilson, Shannon Gibney, and John Coy. Her forthcoming picture book, Revolutions are Made of Love: Grace Lee Boggs and James Boggs, co-written with Mélina Mangal, will be published in 2025.

She is a teaching artist with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop and elsewhere. She is a former MacDowell fellow and has received grants from the Bush Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, and the Minnesota State Arts Board. She lives in Minneapolis where she co-directs the community organization Poetry Asylum with poet Su Hwang.

A few things we chat about in this episode:

Sun Yung Shin’s essay in We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the Word (University of Minnesota), edited by Carolyn Holbrook and David Mura

Sun Yung’s jewelry on Instagram

Grace Lee Boggs, subject of Sun Yung’s forthcoming co-written children’s book

“You can use a very few words [in poetry and picture books] to try to get at some very big ideas.”