Ariel Chu

About Ariel

Ariel Chu is a writer from Eastvale, California and the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants. Drawing from her experience as a queer Asian American woman, Ariel writes fiction about power differentials, fraying social scripts, and suburban hauntings. Ariel earned her B.A. in English from Williams College in 2017. In 2020, Ariel received her MFA in Creative Writing from Syracuse University, where she served as an editor in chief of Salt Hill Journal, received the P.D. Soros Fellowship for New Americans, and won the Shirley Jackson Prize in Fiction. The winner of the Spring 2018 Masters Review Flash Fiction Competition, Ariel has also been published in Black Warrior Review, The Rumpus, and them., among others. Her fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net Award, and Best Small Fictions. Ariel is currently a PhD student in Creative Writing and Literature at USC. With the support of a Steinbeck Fellowship, Ariel is finishing a story collection and novel. While in Taipei as a 2020-2021 Luce Scholar, she worked with Taiwanese authors and international translators to publish “Queer Time,” a collection of new tongzhi writing. An aspiring writing professor, Ariel hopes to support young writers in articulating their own stories.