WRITER IN RESIDENCE

About Quan

Born in Saigon and raised on Boston’s northshore, Quan Barry is the Lorraine Hansberry Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Barry is the author of six books of fiction and poetry, including the recent novel We Ride Upon Sticks, which O: Oprah Magazine describes as, “Spellbinding, wickedly fun.” The New York Times described her previous work, She Weeps Each Time You’re Born, as “deeply affecting.” Her third novel, When I’m Gone, Look for Me in the East, follows a group of Buddhist monks as they search for a reincarnation in the vast Mongolian landscape; When I’m Gone… was published in February 2022, and which the New York Times described as “dazzling.” Barry is also one of a select group of writers to receive NEA fellowships in both poetry and fiction. In 2021, she was awarded the American Library Association’s Alex Award.

In 2012, Barry was commissioned to write a ten-minute piece for Book Wings, an arts exchange established by President Obama and then President Dmitry Medvedev and funded by the Bureau of Cultural and Educational Affairs at the U.S. State Department. Three Variations on a Theme was performed and broadcast simultaneously at the University of Iowa and the Moscow Art Theatre, the same space where Chekov premiered much of his work. Quan is excited and honored to serve as Forward Theater’s first Writer-in-Residence. In addition to gaining more experience and knowledge of theatrical practices, she also hopes to write and develop a play that explores the ethics of artificial intelligence.