Simon Shieh is a poet, essayist, and educator.
His first collection of poems, Master (2023), was selected by Terrance Hayes for Sarabande Books' Kathryn A. Morton Prize, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was the winner of the Norma Farber Book Award. His work has been recognized with a 2023 NEA Creative Writing Fellowship, a 2021 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship, and 2nd place in Narrative's 30 Below Contest 2020. In Beijing he founded the teen creative arts platform, InkBeat Arts, and co-founded the Spittoon Literary Magazine, which translates and publishes the best new Chinese writers in English.
Photo by Jojo Shieh
From 2009-14, Simon competed as an amateur and professional Muay Thai fighter in Thailand, China, Brazil, and Argentina. From 2015-17, he taught American Literature and Society at China Foreign Affairs University on a Princeton in Asia fellowship. The following year, he served as Writer in Residence at the International School of Beijing. He currently lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife, Charlotte, and their dog, Momo.