Biography
Leonard
Chang was born in New York City, and grew up on Long Island, where
he attended the public schools in Merrick. After high school,
Leonard studied at Dartmouth
College, interned
with the Peace Corps in Kingston, Jamaica, and continued his studies in Philosophy
at Harvard University, where he
graduated with honors. He attended the graduate creative writing
program
at
the University
of California at Irvine, and received his Master's of Fine Arts.
His first novel, entitled The
Fruit 'N Food, was published in 1996 and won the Black Heron
Press Award for Social Fiction that year, and is now taught at universities around the world. His second novel, Dispatches from the Cold (Black Heron,
1998) won a San Francisco Bay Guardian Goldie Award for
Literature. He is also the author
of a popular and critically-acclaimed noir trilogy, which includes Over the Shoulder (Ecco/HarperCollins,
2001), Underkill
(St. Martin's, 2003) and Fade to Clear (St.
Martin's, 2004), a USA Today Summer Reading Pick and a finalist
for the Shamus Award. Crossings, his sixth, was published in 2009, and a new forthcoming novel is set to appear in 2012. His
novels
have
been
translated
into
French,
Japanese
and Korean, and are regularly studied in literature, sociology and theology courses throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia. Recently the U.S. Consulate in Berlin sponsored his multi-city
lecture/reading tour of Germany.
In addition to novels, he writes short stories,
essays, and book reviews, and his work has appeared in numerous
literary journals, including The Crescent Review, Prairie Schooner,
Confluence, The Literary Review, Bamboo Ridge, and Lynx
Eye. He was a Visiting Distinguished Writer at
Mills College,
and currently teaches at Antioch University's MFA Program.
Web Interviews, Essays and Literary Criticism:
An early interview
with Bill Han
AbsoluteWrite Interview
Korean Culture
Interview
L.A.
Daily News profile
Over
the Shoulder Reader's Guide
German
PhD Dissertation on Asian American Literature [See
Chapter Five, p. 150ff.(Large
file)]
Underkill Reader's Guide
"Why I Love Crime Fiction" -
an essay
Korean Quarterly
Profile
A follow-up interview
with Bill Han
Fade to
Clear Reader's Guide
San Francisco Chronicle profile
Asian American Times profile
An edited and
condensed speech (mpeg audiofile)
An Interview with Calvin McMillin
An Interview with Nichelle Tramble
A
few questions with Genie Giaimo
A "Where are they now" profile in the Long Island Herald
A third interview
with Bill Han
A web interview with Marc Strassman for Harvardwood
Sukie Park interviews Leonard for The Korea Daily News
Asian American Times interview about Crossings
Giant Robot interview (download as a pdf file)
Korean Quarterly interview (download as a pdf file)
Here's a suggested
reading list Leonard gives his writing students.
Author photos