Marianne Chan grew up in Stuttgart, Germany, and Lansing, Michigan. After she earned her B.A. in English from Michigan State University, she went on to study poetry at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she earned her MFA. She earned her Ph.D. in Creative Writing & Literature from the University of Cincinnati in 2023.
Marianne is the author of All Heathens (Sarabande Books 2020), which was the winner of the 2021 GLCA New Writers Award in Poetry, the 2021 Ohioana Book Award in Poetry, and the 2022 Association for Asian American Studies Book Award for Outstanding Achievement. In 2024, she published her second collection Leaving Biddle City (Sarabande Books), which was the winner of a 2025 ALA Notable Book Award and was a 2024 Poetry Foundation Staff Pick. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, New England Review, Kenyon Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. Between 2017-2019, she served as poetry editor for Split Lip Magazine.
She lives in Norfolk, VA, where she teaches poetry and nonfiction at Old Dominion University. She teaches poetry for the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers.
Find her on Instagram (@mariannelchan).
Photo by Clancy McGilligan