Ally Ang
Photo by Bethanie Hines
Bio
Ally Ang is a gaysian poet and editor based in Seattle, Washington. Their work has been published in Queer Nature: A Poetry Anthology, Nepantla: An Anthology Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color, Foglifter, Columbia Journal,and elsewhere. They are a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, a Tin House workshop alum, and a 2022 Jack Straw Writers Program fellow. Ang holds a BA in sociology and Asian American studies from Wellesley College and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Washington. They are currently working on their first full-length poetry collection. When not writing, Ang can be found gazing longingly at bodies of water or doting on their cat, Gomez.
When I got the call saying that I’d received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, my first thought was that it was some kind of elaborate prank. My second thought was, “Take that, impostor syndrome!” My third thought was that it was definitely an elaborate prank. While receiving the NEA Fellowship did not magically cure my impostor syndrome, it has given me the support and resources I need to finish my first full-length poetry collection, a project that I have been working on and agonizing over and dancing/stumbling/crawling towards for more than three years. During that time, I’ve often questioned why I have devoted so much of myself to something as seemingly self-indulgent as poetry while the world burns around me, but the answer I keep returning to is that poetry has fueled my survival in a way that nothing else has. Poetry has brought me joy, community, pleasure, hope, and now, against all odds, it’s brought me this. To have people believe in me and my work enough to support me in this way means everything to me. Thank you.