Gene Luen Yang

In 2012, Yang joined the faculty at Hamline University as a part of the Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults (MFAC) program. In 2016, the U.S. Library of Congress named him Ambassador for Young People's Literature. That year he became the third graphic novelist, alongside Lauren Redniss, to receive a MacArthur Fellowship.

Yang was born on August 9, 1973 in Fremont, California and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. His father, an electrical engineer from Taiwan and his mother, a programmer from Hong Kong with family root in Taiwan, emigrated to the United States, where they met as graduate students at San Jose State University. He was raised in a Catholic household, where his parents instilled a strong work ethic and reinforced their Asian heritage. In a speech at Penn State, where he spoke as a part of a Graphic Novel Speaker Series, Yang recalled that both of his parents often told him stories during his childhood. Yang was one member of a small number of Asian-American students in his elementary school. As a child, he aspired to become a Disney animator. In third grade, he completed a biography project on Walt Disney, which sparked what he later called his obsession with animation. His ambitions changed in fifth grade, when his mother took him to a local bookstore bought him his first comic, issue 57 of DC Comics Presents, featuring Superman. She had declined his initial choice, Marvel Two-in-One issue 99, because its cover The Thing and Rom, looked too frightening. Yang has said that reading the issue ignited his lifelong love of comic books and storytelling. Yang attended the University of California, Berkeley for his undergraduate degree. He wanted to major in art, but his father encouraged him to pursue a more "practical" field, so Yang majored in computer science with a minor in creative writing.

After graduating in 1995, with a B.S in Computer Science from University of California, Berkeley, Yang worked for two years as a computer engineer. Following a five day silent retreat, he felt called to teaching and left his engineering job to teach computer science at a Bishop O'Dowd High School in Oakland, California, where he also served as Director of Information Services. He taught there 17 years from 1998 to 2015, while continuing to write and draw comics during evening and weekends. In 1996, he founded Humble Comics, through which he self-published Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the Greeks, later funded by a Xeric Grant. His work eventually reached major publishers, including First Second Books (an imprint of Macmillan Publishers), Marvel Comics, DC Comics, SLG Publishing, Dark Horse Comics, HarperTeen, The New Press, and Pauline Books & Media. In 1997, Yang first published comic Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the Geeks under his Humble Comics imprint, and it won him the Xeric Grant, a self-publishing grant for comic book creators. Yang later published two more installments in the Gordon Yamamoto mini-series and a sequel, Loyola Chin and the San Peligran Order. In 2010, both Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the Geeks series and Loyola Chin and the San Pelgrino Order were published together as Animal Crackers by Slave Labor Graphics. In 2006, Yang published American Born Chinese with First Second Publishing. Drawing upon the Chinese folk character of the trickster Monkey King, the book tells the story of a school-age second-generation immigrant who struggles with his Chinese-American identity. Although Yang drew from his own experiences, the book is not autobiographical. In 2021 Disney+ ordered production of a television adaptation of the book. Yang wrote American Born Chinese to look into what it means to be Chinese-American, drawing on his own experience with racism and cultural conflict. In shaping the graphic novel, he was inspired by the Chinese folktale Journey to the West, especially the Monkey King, and reimagined the story reflect the modern immigrant experience. According to Yang, the book is about "the pain of being an outsider", and tries to challenge racial stereotypes while giving young readers a way to connect if they face similar struggles. By mixing humor, mythology, and social commentary, Yang wanted to create a story that would reach many people and show how comics can help bridge cultural gaps by sharing common experience and building empathy. Yang's other works have been recognized as well. In 2009, Yang was awarded another Eisner Award for Best Short Story for his collaborative work The Eternal Smile which he wrote and Derek Kirk Kim illustrated. Yang was nominated for Eisner Awards for both Prime Baby and his collaborative work with Thien Pham, Level Up. Yang wrote the Avatar: The Last Airbender comics series for Dark Horse Comics, the first volume of which was released in January 2012. Yang's graphic novel, Boxers & Saints, which was published by First Second Books in September 2013. In July 2016, DC Comics released the first issue of New Super-Man, featuring a separate Chinese character in the Superman mold, written by Yang and drawn by Viktor Bogdanovic. In October 2019, Yang created a limited series, Superman Smashes the Klan, a loose adaptation of a famous 1946 story-arc from The Adventures of Superman radio series, "Clan of the Fiery Cross", in which an Asian-American family is threatened by the Ku Klux Klan and a young and unsure Superman is determined to protect the children from the terrorists. Making his Marvel Comics debut in 2020, Yang wrote a miniseries starring the martial arts superhero Shang-Chi. According to Yang, the series explores the relationship between Shang-Chi and his archenemy father Zheng Zu, who was originally the infamous villain Fu Manchu. In May 2021, in celebration of the Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, DC Comics launched the hero Monkey Prince, created by Yang and Bernard Chang. Yang advocates the use of comics and graphic novels as educational tools in the classroom. In his final project for his master's degree at California State University, East Bay, he emphasized the educational strength of comics, claiming they are motivating, visual, permanent, intermediary, and popular. As a part of his Master's project, Yang created an online comic called Factoring with Mr. Yang & Mosley the Alien as a method of teaching math. This idea came from a time where Yang was substitute teaching a math class at Bishop O'Dowd. Due to his position as Director of Information Services, he was forced to miss classes and used the comics to help the students learn the concepts in his absence. Positive student feedback inspired him to use the idea for his Master's project. In 2018, Yang joined the board of directors of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, a non-profit organization founded in 1986 chartered to protect the First Amendment rights of the comics community. In 2024, Yang designed a comic mural for the museum Bay Area Walls. This mural features three basketball players, each with ties to the Bay Area, at distinct distances. Yang did extensive research as well as interviews to determine where to place Jeremy Lin, Fran Belibi, and Stephen Curry in his mural.

Up All Night (Harper Collins) – 14-page short story Secret Identities (The New Press) – 12-page short story Strange Tales II (Marvel Comics) – 4-page short story Nursery Rhyme Comics (First Second Books) – 1-page short story Shattered (The New Press) – 4-page short story Open Mic (Candlewick) – 4-page short story Comic Squad: Recess! (Random House) – 12-page short story