A native of California, Shawna Yang Ryan teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Hawai`i at Manoa. Her debut novel, first published in 2007 by El Leon Literary Arts under the title Locke 1928, was re-issued by The Penguin Press as Water Ghosts in 2009. It was a San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller, the 2006 winner of the UC Davis Maurice Prize, a finalist for the 2008 Northern California Book Award, and long-listed for the 2010 Asian American Literary Award. Booklist called Water Ghosts “accomplished and affecting,” while The Boston Globe has declared her “a writer to watch.”

Her short fiction has appeared in ZYZZYVA, The Asian American Literary Review, Kartika Review, and The Berkeley Fiction Review.

A former Fulbright scholar in Taiwan, Ryan has set her second novel, Green Island, during Taiwan’s martial law era. It will be published in February 2016 by Alfred A. Knopf.