‘Breathwork Meditation for Reparations’ Exhibition Poetry 2026 Prize Winner 

Michelle Chen takes inspiration for her writing from the events that occur in and around her home, New York City, though her birthplace is Singapore and she hopes to return and visit someday. Her work appears in Prairie Schooner, the Asian American Writers Workshop's The Margins, Kinsman Quarterly: Winds of Asia, Deep Wild, LIBRE, and elsewhere. She has been recognized by Ploughshares Emerging Writers, the City College of New York, Brooklyn Public Library, and Penguin Random House, among others. She is an alumni of the Juniper Institute for Young Writers, the Iowa Young Writers' Studio with the support of the National Society of Arts and Letters, Girls in Icy Fjords, the Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship, Girls Write Now, and the Teaching Artist Project. She is currently a graduate student at NYU while acting and modeling, and enjoys less ice and less sugar in her winter melon milk tea. You can follow her collegiate book blog at https://silkwormreading.blogspot.com.