Allison was born and raised in Taiwan and arrived in the U.S. at twenty-two as a university student. That’s when she realized her school English wasn’t much help when asking for directions on the street or opening a bank account. By recording each of the classes she took––including physical education––and reviewing the tape every night for a year, she eventually learned English well enough to earn an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. But please excuse her if she misuses the verb tenses or mixes up the genders in third-person pronouns when she speaks. It’s no secret––English is a hard language to learn.

Allison is an editor at Dialogue Journal. She writes in both Chinese and English, both fiction and creative nonfiction, which means she spends a lot of time looking up words on Dictionary.com. Her work has won both national and international literary awards. She has two more books coming out soon. Allison would love to hear from you. Please email her at [email protected]. Visit her at www.facebook.com/allisonhongmerrill or allisonhongmerrill.com, where you can sign up for her extremely short monthly email.