Lindsay Wong

Title: Assistant Professor

Biography:

LINDSAY WONG is the author of the critically acclaimed, award-winning, and bestselling memoir The Woo-Woo, which was a finalist for Canada Reads 2019. It won the Hubert-Evans Prize in Nonfiction in 2019, and was a finalist for the Hilary Weston Prize for Nonfiction in 2018 and longlisted for the Stephen Leacock Medal in 2019. She has written a YA novel entitled My Summer of Love and Misfortune. Her new acclaimed short story collection, Tell Me Pleasant Things about Immortality was released in February 2023, and a novel is forthcoming in 2024 from Penguin Random House Canada.

Her reviews, short essays, columns, and profiles have appeared in The Toronto Star, Vice Magazine, The Globe & Mail, Herizons Magazine, CBC Arts, among others, including a notable mention in Best American Essays of 2021. Her radio documentary “Just Leave, Please,” aired nationally on CBC Radio One. The recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, Wong has also been writer-in-residence at the University of Manitoba, the University of Fraser Valley, the Vancouver Public Library, Richmond Public Library,  the Kimmel Nelson Harding Center in Nebraska City, the Studios of Key West in Florida, and Caldera Arts in Sisters, Oregon.

Wong holds a BFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia and an MFA in literary nonfiction from Columbia University. Follow her on Twitter @LindsayMWong, Instagram @Lindsaywong.M, or visit www.lindsaywongwriter.com.

Teaching Areas:

Literary/speculative fiction, genre fiction, writing for young adults, memoir, and personal essay

Courses:

Publications:

BOOKS

Tell Me Pleasant Things About Immortality: Stories (Penguin/PRH Canada, 2023, 288 pages)

My Summer Of Love and Misfortune (Simon & Schuster/Simon Pulse, 2020, 384 pages.)

The Woo-Woo: How I Survived Ice Hockey, Demons, Drug-Raids, and My Crazy Chinese Family (A Memoir)  (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018, 304 pages)

SHORT PROSE (FICTION & NONFICTION)

Wong, Lindsay M. “I wrote a memoir about my family's secrets. Then I had to move back in with them,” CBC’s First Person Column. July 2022 (essay)

Wong, Lindsay M. “On Evelyn Lau and her new book Pineapple Express,” Herizons Magazine, January 2022. (profile)

Wong, Lindsay M. “COVID-19 may be my millennial generation’s diaspora, but it’s also my family’s latest, haunting trauma.” The Toronto Star. July 2020. (essay)

Wong, Lindsay M. “Bad Luck And Resiliency in The Year of The Rat” CBC Books. May 2020. (essay)

Wong, Lindsay. “Furniture on the Brain,” Room Magazine 43.3 Neurodivergence, October 2020 (personal essay.)  *NOTABLE MENTION IN BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS 2021.

Wong, Lindsay M. “Where Did Lindsay Wong Write The Woo-Woo? Anywhere and everywhere.” CBC Arts. 18 March 2019. (essay)

Wong, Lindsay M. “Chinese Hell Month.” Hyphen Magazine. 9 January 2019. (essay)

Wong, Lindsay M. “Chop Suey Nation by Ann Hui.” The Globe & Mail. January 2019. (book review)

Wong, Lindsay M. “The Book That Changed Your Life.” The Georgia Straight. 20 September 2019. (essay)

Wong, Lindsay M. “Winner or Loser.” Rabble.ca. 14 November 2018. (essay)

Wong, Lindsay M. “If I Made MVP, would my mother come back?” The National Post. 30 October 2018. (essay)

Wong, Lindsay M. “I Grew Up With Parents That Didn’t Understand Mental Illness.” Vice Magazine. 24 October 2018. (essay)

Wong, Lindsay M. “Outrunning The Woo-Woo.” The Tyee. 15 October 2018. (essay)

Wong, Lindsay M. “Most Valuable Player.” No Tokens. November 2015. (essay)

Wong, Lindsay M. “The Suicided.” Ricepaper Magazine. October 2015. (essay)

Wong, Lindsay M (pseudonym Vanessa Li). “Wreck Beach.” The Fiddlehead No.253: Atlantic Canada’s International Journal, Autumn 2012. (short story) 

Wong, Lindsay M. “From Dumpster,” Apogee Journal, Summer 2012. (essay)

WRITING FOR RADIO/DOCUMENTARY

“Just Leave, Please.” 30 minute humor documentary on living with parents during the pandemic for CBC’s The Doc Project. July 2022. Produced by Tania MacLean. Written and voiced by Lindsay Wong. Listen here: https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2044362307622