Korean adoptee. Memoirist. Poet.
Nik Chang Hoon 임창훈 is the winner of the 2024 Annie Dillard Prize for Creative Nonfiction, a finalist for The Iowa Review Award in Nonfiction, and an alum of the Bread Loaf, Tin House & Kenyon Review writers workshops.
Nik is currently working on a memoir that explores how transracial adoption unfolds not as a single life event, but rather as an ongoing experience that is generationally violent, emotionally traumatic and physically embedded into the body.
Through all his artistic work, Nik aims to center the experiences of adoptees and their first (biological) families, normalize discussion of adoption as a form of personal and intergenerational trauma and advocate for equitable access to adoption-informed mental health care.
In his past lives Nik has worked as a DEI practitioner, executive speechwriter, political communications director, writing center instructor and Korean high school English teacher.
He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota with his wife and their spoiled golden doodle, Penny.
Praise
2024 Winner, Annie Dillard Prize for Creative Nonfiction
“Abandoned supposings: A letter to my non-father's silence is a moving invitation into a complex relationship between an adoptee in adulthood and an estranged birth parent.
The epistle weaves throughout two generations of history, documents the creation of personal archives, and considers the impacts of fuzzy memory and translation, resulting in a beautifully complicated, textured reading experience.
We are so lucky to witness the writing, the remembering, and the subsequent rewriting before settling into something like resolution on behalf of this writer."
- Emilly Prado, author of Funeral for Flaca, winner of the 2022 Pacific Northwest Book Award
Work & awards
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도장 Dojang [poem], The Plentitudes, Winter 2025 Issue No. 17
Abandoned supposings: A letter to my non-father's silence, Bellingham Review (forthcoming January 2025 & the winner of the Annie Dillard Prize for Creative Nonfiction)
post- and pre-[poem], Blue Earth Review and Runner-Up for the Minnesota BIPOC Emerging Writers’ Award in poetry (judged by Michael Kleber-Diggs), Spring 2024
Finding Korea, outside and within, Coalition of Asian American Leaders MinneAsianStories, May 2019
Meet the newest Minnesota Twin: Power hitter Byung Ho Park is excited and eager to win, Korean Quarterly, Winter 2016
From one Korean Minnesotan to another: Welcome to Byung Ho Park [op-ed], Minneapolis Star Tribune, December 18, 2015 (translated into Korean by the Chosun Ilbo, one of S. Korea’s largest national newspapers)
Pushing forward, reaching out: Korean unwed mothers advocate for a stigma-free society, Korean Quarterly, Winter 2011
Making sense of past and present: A Korean adoptee witnesses a birth family reunion in Guatemala, Korean Quarterly, Spring 2009
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2024 First Prize, Annie Dillard Award for Creative Nonfiction, Bellingham Review (selected by judge Emilly Prado out of nearly 750 submissions), for "Abandoned supposings: Letters to my non-father's silence"
2024 Finalist, The Iowa Review Award in Nonfiction (judged by Sarah Viren) for "Abandoned supposings: Letters to my non-father's silence"
2024 Runner Up, Minnesota BIPOC Emerging Writer Award in Poetry, Blue Earth Review, judged by Michael Kleber-Diggs, for poems "suposer - part one," "suposer - part two," and "post- and pre-"
2024 2nd Prize Fellow in Poetry, Martha’s Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing Weekend Writer Fellowship, for "Primal supposings: Poems on transracial adoption"
2023 Finalist, MAYDAY Poetry Microchapbook Contest, judged by Sophia Terazawa for "Primal Supposings"
2009-2011 Fulbright Grantee, South Korea
2008 Third Prize, Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics National Essay Contest, for “Ethics of Reclaiming,” examining South Korean national policies toward and collective imagination of its 200,000-plus overseas adoptees
2005 State of Minnesota Winner, VFW Voice of Democracy Audio Essay Contest
2005 Eagle Scout (fun fact: I used to be able to tie a one-handed knot in mid-air)
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“Writing Into the Void: Strategies for Tackling Estrangement in Your Writing” (forthcoming writing workshop co-led with Lora Alegria & Summer Sullivan), 2025 Adoptee Literary Festival
2024 Tin House Autumn Workshop, Creative Nonfiction (led by Emilly Prado)
Fall 2024 Corporeal Writing “Writing From the Boundaries: The Craft of Fabulist and Speculative Nonfiction” (led by Jami Nakamura Lin)
2024 Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Creative Nonfiction (led by Jenny Boully)
2024 Kenyon Review Adult Residential Writers Workshop, Creative Nonfiction (led by Rajiv Mohabir)
2023-24 Loft Literary Center Year-Long Creative Nonfiction & Memoir Writing Project (led by Sun Yung Shin)
Winter 2024 Kenyon Review Winter Creative Nonfiction Workshop (led by Michael Kleber-Diggs, Grace Talusan & Shannon Gibney)
Fall 2023 Writing Into Silence Workshop (led by Q.M. Zhang)
Fall 2023 Asian Adoptee Poetry Workshop (led by Lee Herrick & Jennifer Kwon Dobbs)
Spring 2019 Loft Literary Center Memoir: The Wealth of Presence and Absence (led by Sun Yung Shin)
Fall 2015 Flash Fiction Workshop (led by Matthew Salesses)
Spring 2015 Grub Street Novel Builder (led by Matthew Salesses)
Summer 2012 Loft Literary Center Young Adult Literature 101 (led by Swati Avasthi)
“post- and pre-” | Blue Earth Review | Spring 2024
Get in touch.
I’m passionate about connecting with artists across all genres and mediums!
I also offer consultations on submitting to literary journals and contests, establishing a successful writing practice (especially outside a traditional MFA track) and building a supportive community of writers who encourage you to take new creative risks.