Shelter (Yun) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1972
• Where—South Korea
• Raised—Fargo, North Dakota, USA
• Education—B.A., Vassar College; M.A., University of Pennsylvania; M.F.A.,
   University of Massachusetts-Amherst
• Currently—lives in Amherst, Massachusetts


Jung Yun was born in South Korea and grew up in North Dakota. She received her B.A. in Asian Studies at Vassar College and went on to the University of Pennsylvania where she earned a Master's in Public Administration.

Career
From there Yun headed to New York City where, after a number of years, she became deputy director for the Lincoln Center for Performing Arts Redevelopment Corporation. Working 90- to 100-hour weeks, she came to realize that, as much as she loved her work, she wanted a different life—in particular, a writing life. So in her early 40s, Yun applied to the M.F.A. program at the University of Massachusetts and in 2007 graduated with her second Masters, this one in writing.

Today, Yun serves as the director of New Faculty Initiatives at the UMass Amherst Institute for Teaching Excellence and Faculty Development.

Writing
Shelter, her first novel appeared in 2016 to solid, even superlative, reviews.

Other work has appeared in Tin House (the "Emerging Voices" issue); The Best of Tin House: Stories, edited by Dorothy Allison; and the Massachusetts Review; and she is a recipient of an honorable mention for the Pushcart Prize and an Artist's Fellowship in fiction from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. She lives in Western Massachusetts with her husband. (Adapted from the publisher and from the UMass Department of English profile.)