Origin Story

I’m a first generation American born to a German American father and Chinese Indonesian mother. I have tetralogy of Fallot and Premature Ovarian Insufficiency. My creative work has long explored themes of hybridity, plurality, and transformation.

Poetry

In 2013, while living in Shanghai, I wrote what eventually became Hua Shi Hua, my debut poetry collection.

Nonfiction

In 2014, I met the women who made the bio prosthetic valve sewn to my heart and wrote a compendium about care work.

Activism

In 2016, I began advocating for improved transfer care for adolescents with Congenital Heart Disease.

Then, in 2018, I became a mother.

Photo by Jenn Judkins, Birth Moments Photography

Between 2018-2023, I took a break from writing to have a baby and move across the country so that my husband could build The George Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. Then, quite suddenly, I needed another open heart surgery. Afterward, I unknowingly went into perimenopause. I wasn’t diagnosed until I reached menopause at 38 years old. (The average age is 51). Only then, did my life begin to make sense again.

I began considering how the invisibility of what I now know to be a radical vibe shift contributes to the penalties women incur as we age. These days, I am interested in reading and filling in this particular gap in literature. My current work includes essays, reportage, and literary fiction (about poetry).

Short Bio: Jen Hyde is the author of Hua Shi Hua,华诗画 [Drawings & Poems from China] (Ahsahta Press, Boise State University). A finalist for the Creative Capital Grant in Literature, and an alumni of Yaddo, The Millay Colony, and the Asian American Writer's Workshop Margins Fellowship, Jen’s writing has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Longreads and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University and has taught at Pomona College and, most recently, Sonoma State University.