Bich Minh Nguyenyo
Fiction and Nonfiction

Bich Minh Nguyen's novel Short Girls (Viking Penguin, 2009) was named an American Book Award winner in fiction and and a best book of the year by Library Journal. Her memoir-in-essays, Stealing Buddha's Dinner (Viking Penguin, 2007) received the PEN/Jerard Award from the PEN American Center and was a Chicago Tribune Best Book of 2007, a Kiriyama Prize Notable Book, and an Asian American Literature Award finalist. Stealing Buddha's Dinner has been featured as a common read selection within numerous communities and universities, including the all-state Great Michigan Read. Nguyen's work has also appeared in publications such as Gourmet magazine; Dream Me Home Safely: Writers on Growing up in America; and Watermark: Vietnamese American Poetry and Prose.

Nguyen was born in Saigon, Viet Nam in 1974. When she was eight months old her family fled the fall of Saigon, eventually settling in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She received an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan and currently teaches creative nonfiction, fiction, and Asian American Literature at Purdue University. She lives in Chicago and West Lafayette, Indiana with her husband, novelist Porter Shreve. Nguyen and Shreve have coedited three anthologies: 30/30: Thirty American Stories from the Last Thirty Years (Penguin Academic); Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: I & Eye (Longman); and The Contemporary American Short Story (Longman).

Nguyen's first name, Bich, is pronounced like "Bic"; however, most people call Bich "Bit." Nguyen, the Smith of Viet Nam, is pronounced something like Ngoo-ee-ehn (said quickly, as in one syllable), but most people tend to say "Win" or "New-IN" instead.