Jen is a Korean American writer and mental health advocate based in Portland, Oregon, entering into her eleventh year in recovery from alcoholism and bulimia. Her writing focuses on her addiction, exploring the impacts of identity, race, and intergenerational trauma. Through her work, Jen hopes to reach communities of color to destigmatize the stigmatized, decolonize shame, and encourage healing. She is the recipient of HrStry’s Eunice Williams Nonfiction Prize and has received fellowships from Anaphora Arts and Fishtrap. In 2021, she published a zine through zines + things and her essays can be found in Oregon Humanities and elsewhere.
The hardwired need, the uncontrollable craving people described, manifested for me primarily with my bulimia. Alcohol played second string in the quartet.