On Brittani Sonnenberg

I am delighted to nominate Brittani Sonnenberg, a senior at Harvard, and a member of my Creative Writing class last fall. Brit is a joy in every way: smart, unpretentious, perceptive, and adventurous. As a member of an improv comedy group, she is used to taking risks; you can see in her work, I think, a complete willingness to go over the top. In this particular piece, too, you can see her familiarity with worlds far from home. Having grown up abroad, and having worked as a reporter in Cambodia, she brings to the page an understanding of the world unusual for an undergrad.

And what she's made of what she knows! I loved this piece for its sad and funny truth; but also for its timing, and aplomb, and stitchery. Please note the motifs with which she connects one vignette to the next, for example. A joy, those delicate, surprising "rhymes"—no?

My class was, amazingly, Brit's first fiction workshop. I am happy to report she is currently working on a creative thesis, a collection of stories, and that she is planning to become a writer. This would be her first published story.

—Gish Jen, author of the novels Typical American and Mona in the Promised Land, and the story collection Who's Irish?