Emily X.R. Pan

Pan was born in Illinois and is the only child of Taiwanese parents who immigrated to the United States.[1] Her father is a professor at The College of New Jersey and her mother is a piano and guzheng teacher.[1]

She attempted to write her first novel in second grade and ultimately finished her first novel for a sixth grade assignment at school.[1] By 15, she was querying literary agents to pursue publication.[1] Pan studied International Marketing at NYU Stern, where she graduated a semester early.[1] After graduation, she worked as an editor-in-chief at the Washington Square Review before getting accepted into the NYU's Creative Writing program.[1] In 2010, while in grad school, she developed the idea for what would become her debut novel and kept rewriting and putting it aside in favor of different manuscripts.[1][2]

Together with fellow author Nova Ren Suma, Pan is also the co-founder of Foreshadow: A Serial Anthology, a monthly online anthology for young adult short stories, which was realized via the crowdfunding site Indiegogo in August 2018.[3]

She lives in Brooklyn, New York.[4]

Pan's debut novel tells the story of 15-year old Leigh, who deals with her mother's recent death by suicide through traveling to Taiwan and meeting her maternal grandparents.[5] Believing that her mother has been reincarnated as a great red bird, she tries to find clues in her family history to uncover what really happened to her mother.[6] The Astonishing Color of After was published by Little, Brown in March 2018 and debuted on the New York Times Bestseller List at #10.[7]

Pan wrote the novel as a tribute to her grandmother, inspired by her life in colonial Taiwan.[8] Originally it was planned to be historical fiction, set in 1927, and span over 40 years of a Taiwanese woman's life, but Pan ultimately opted for a contemporary setting.[8][2] To write the novel, Pan traveled to Taiwan for research multiple times and rewrote the novel over a period of five years.[9][2]

Won

• 2019 Asian/Pacific American Award for Young Adult Literature[10]
• 2020 Lincoln Award[11]

Nominated

• 2018 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature[12]
• 2018 Goodreads Choice Award for Young Adult Fiction and for Debut Author[13]