Jack Wang and his twin brother Holman were born in Taiwan and moved with their family to Vancouver while they were still infants. Jack earned a B.Sc. in biology and anthropology from the University of Toronto in 1994 followed by an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Arizona in 1997. He earned a Ph.D. in English with an emphasis on creative writing from the Florida State University in 2006. Jack Wang is currently an associate professor in the Dept. of Writing at Ithaca College in New York state. Jack and Holman have attained some acclaim as the co-creators of the twelve-word board books for young children in the Cozy Classics series and the Star Wars Epic Yarns series. They told Marsha Lederman of the Globe and Mail that Jack “takes first crack” at the stories while Holman takes a lead role in creating and photographing most of the felt figures used to tell the stories.
The publication of his short story collection We Two Alone promises to bring his previously published, acclaimed stories to a wider audience. His story “The Nature of Things” that was first published in The Malahat Review was shortlisted for The Journey Prize (v. 29) for 2017. His story “The Night of Broken Glass” was shortlisted for the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize.
Fiction (Juvenile, Board book)
Cozy Classics: C. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Co-creator: Holman Wang.
San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2017.
Fiction (Juvenile, Board book)
Cozy Classics: Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations
Co-creator: Holman Wang.
San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2016.
Fiction (Juvenile, Board book)
Cozy Classics: Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist
Co-creator: Holman Wang.
[Vancouver]: Simply Read Books, 2013.
Fiction (Juvenile, Board book)
Cozy Classics: Emily Brontë’s Jane Eyre
Co-creator: Holman Wang.
[Vancouver]: Simply Read Books, 2013.
Fiction (Juvenile, Board book)
Cozy Classics: Herman Melville’s Moby Dick
Co-creator: Holman Wang.
[Vancouver]: Simply Read Books, 2012.
Fiction (Juvenile, Board book)
Cozy Classics: Jane Austen’s Emma
Co-creator: Holman Wang.
[Vancouver]: Simply Read Books, 2013.
Fiction (Juvenile, Board book)
Cozy Classics: Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
Co-creator: Holman Wang.
[Vancouver]: Simply Read Books, 2012.
Fiction (Juvenile, Board book)
Cozy Classics: Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace
Co-creator: Holman Wang.
[Vancouver]: Simply Read Books, 2013.
Fiction (Juvenile, Board book)
Cozy Classics: Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Co-creator: Holman Wang.
[Vancouver]: Simply Read Books, 2014.
Fiction (Juvenile, Board book)
Cozy Classics: Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Co-creator: Holman Wang.
[Vancouver]: Simply Read Books, 2014.
Fiction (Juvenile, Board book)
Cozy Classics: Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables
Co-creator: Holman Wang.
[Vancouver]: Simply Read Books, 2013.
Fiction (Juvenile, Board book)
Star Wars Epic Yarns: A New Hope
Co-creator: Holman Wang.
San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2015.
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
Ma misses the sun, warmth and colors of their faraway homeland, but her daughter sees magic in everything — the clouds in the winter sky, the “firework” display when she throws an armful of snow into the air, making snow angels, tasting snowflakes. And in the end, her joy is contagious. Home is where family is, after all.
Princess Leia sends a hologram message through R2-D2, Luke Skywalker will learn how to use a lightsaber, and our heroes triumph.
Fiction (Juvenile, Board book)
Star Wars Epic Yarns: Return of the Jedi
Co-creator: Holman Wang.
San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2015.
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
Ma misses the sun, warmth and colors of their faraway homeland, but her daughter sees magic in everything — the clouds in the winter sky, the “firework” display when she throws an armful of snow into the air, making snow angels, tasting snowflakes. And in the end, her joy is contagious. Home is where family is, after all.
The monster Jabba is encountered, C-3PO conducts story time, and there is a happy ending.
Fiction (Juvenile, Board book)
Star Wars Epic Yarns: The Empire Strikes Back
Co-creator: Holman Wang.
San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2015.
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
Ma misses the sun, warmth and colors of their faraway homeland, but her daughter sees magic in everything — the clouds in the winter sky, the “firework” display when she throws an armful of snow into the air, making snow angels, tasting snowflakes. And in the end, her joy is contagious. Home is where family is, after all.
Luke meets his teacher Yoda, Han Solo makes a friend, and there is a lightsaber duel with a Sith Lord in the dark.
Fiction (Short stories)
We Two Alone
Toronto: House of Anansi, 2020.
Will be ordered.
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
Ma misses the sun, warmth and colors of their faraway homeland, but her daughter sees magic in everything — the clouds in the winter sky, the “firework” display when she throws an armful of snow into the air, making snow angels, tasting snowflakes. And in the end, her joy is contagious. Home is where family is, after all.
Set on five continents and spanning nearly a century, We Two Alone traces the long arc and evolution of the Chinese immigrant experience. A young laundry boy risks his life to play organized hockey in Canada in the 1920s. A Canadian couple gets caught in the outbreak of violence in Shanghai during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The consul general of China attempts to save lives following Kristallnacht in Vienna. A family struggles to buy a home in South Africa, during the rise of apartheid. An actor in New York struggles to keep his career alive while yearning to reconcile with his estranged wife.
From the vulnerable and disenfranchised to the educated and elite, the characters in this extraordinary collection embody the diversity of the diaspora at key moments in history and in contemporary times. Jack Wang has crafted deeply affecting stories that not only subvert expectations but contend with mortality and delicately draw out the intimacies and failings of love.
Awards and Honours
2020 Danuta Gleed Literary Award (Winner)
Anthology (Short story)
“The Nature of Things” was first published in the autumn 2016 issue of the journal The Malahat Review. It was a finalist for the 2017 awarding of The Journey Prize. It appeared in The Journey Prize: Stories: The Best of Canada’s New Writers (Vol. 29. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2017).
PS8329.J68
Links
Jack Wang personal website
Publisher Simply Read Books
Publisher Chronicle Books
Cozy Classics website
Publisher House of Anansi
Jack Wang faculty page at Ithaca College