
Mok Zining is obsessed with random things: orchids, arabesques, sand. The Orchid Folios (Ethos Books, 2020) is her first book. Her work has appeared in Witness Magazine, The Rumpus and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among others. Zining is a recent graduate of the MFA program at the University of Minnesota, where she taught creative writing. She has received a number of awards, including the College of Liberal Arts Fellowship from the University of Minnesota, the Helen G. Scott Prize for Best Critical Essay on American Literature, and an honorable mention from the Academy of American Poets’ James Wright Prize. Zining lives in Singapore, where she is working on a book about sand. She spends most of her free time dancing.
Mok, Zining
proper noun
My given name, Zining, rhymes with “winning.” Mok, my family name, comes from the pictogram for sunset.