Writer

My short story, "Pride," has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize! Find it in the latest Write Volumes--you can purchase here or read it for free on Kindle Unlimited! The editor even made a video teaser for it! 

Check out chapters of my novel*  and Pride's prequel, "The Footbridge," -- a finalist for Witness Magazine’s Literary Award -- on jenbwang.substack.com! 

*I'm also querying.. or maybe self-publishing.. my first novel, The Ballad of the Phoenix, a YA fantasy set in a wuxia-inspired world. 

The Ballad of the Phoenix: 

Seventeen-year-old Yiling Zhou-Barron needs to get her brother Tian back to the real world, stat. She’s managed to track him down in Wuxia, a magical alt-world, and good thing, because he’s joined a cult that’s dead set on going to battle with another clan. Battle! He’s supposed to enjoy his life as Mr. Popular in their small town and die of natural causes when he’s 80, not martyr himself for some random cult’s cause in another universe. 

But Tian, as usual, won’t listen to Yiling. And she can’t exactly knock him out and take him home, because not only does he now know magical kung fu—just perfect for a little brother with a bone to pick with his sister—but his clan leader, the only person with the power to send them home, has completely different plans not only for Tian, but Yiling. And to be honest, Yiling can’t help but enjoy the leader’s insistence that Yiling—“more than anyone”—belongs in Wuxia.

The longer Yiling stays in Wuxia, the more those words start to feel right—even when she can’t tap that “deep well of qi” everyone says she has. Unlike the bullies she endures at home, here, the clan members welcome her, teach her, even invite her to epic Chinese instrument jam sessions. 

And one alto-voiced, badass yet kind, ice-magic-wielding, beautiful-guzheng-playing girl makes Yiling feel a sense of belonging within herself for the first time. Yiling feels no shame, no freaking shame as she falls hard for Alex Liang, clashing objectives be damned.

But when Yiling learns the Zhous are deeply connected to Wuxia, her plan to get Tian home capsizes. Who is really her family, when she’s grown up with lies, and where is she truly home? Which world will Yiling choose when safety of the body is not safety of the heart?

The female-female romance at the center of The Ballad of the Phoenix is definitely not wuxia-inspired. I loved watching wuxia (kung fu) epics growing up, but even when there were strong female characters, they relied on the men they were hopelessly in love with--or went evil mourning their beloveds. There weren't even strong female friendships in those stories. 

I wrote The Ballad of the Phoenix in the hopes of helping queer, questioning, neurodivergent, and Othered readers--and anybody who's ever had to face down internal or external bullies--to feel seen on my pages, to find inspiration and escape.