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About

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Hsiu Chon / The Atlantic

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Elaine Hsieh Chou is a Taiwanese American director, screenwriter and author from California. Her multi-genre short story collection WHERE ARE YOU REALLY FROM was named a Best Book of the Year by TIME, NPR and Electric Literature, while her debut novel DISORIENTATION  was a New York Times Editors' Choice Book, NYPL Young Lions Finalist and Thurber Prize for American Humor Finalist. The novel was optioned by AppleTV+ with Elaine set to adapt.

A former Rona Jaffe Graduate Fellow at NYU, her Pushcart Award-winning short fiction appears in Guernica, Black Warrior ReviewTin House Online, Ploughshares and The Atlantic, while her essays appear in The Cut and Vanity Fair. She is the recipient of the 2023 Fred R. Brown Literary Award and has been supported by the Harry Ransom Center, the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Hedgebrook writers-in-residence program.

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Elaine was a 2023 Sundance Episodic Lab fellow; her selected pilot GET HOME SAFE is an hour-long social thriller. Her half-hour pilot adapted from her short story, BANANA TREE GHOST, was optioned by Legendary Entertainment following a three-way bidding war. She was named a 2024 Series Creator to Watch by Gotham.

Elaine is currently in the process of adapting her short story, "Mail Order Love," into a feature film with director Jess Dang. She is also at work on her directorial debut, the short film For His Pleasure, produced by Alexa Rocero. To stay updated, follow @forhispleasurefilm 

 © Elaine Hsieh Chou 2026

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