Update: You can now pre-order the book here https://invisiblepublishing.com/product/the-lantern-and-the-night-moths/. I am super delighted to announce that I have signed a contract with Invisible Publishing for my debut book translation project, featuring modern and contemporary Chinese poetry in translation, forthcoming in spring 2024. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Yilin Wang (@yilinwriter) I have always dreamed of a project like this ever since my first attempt at poetry translation during a multi-genre craft workshop with Keith Maillard. It’s a project that I’m really ex ..read more

It’s New Year’s Eve today. I’m writing this at my desk by the window, looking out onto an empty suburban street full of bare trees. It definitely still feels like the middle of winter here in Vancouver, but the days are slowing getting longer, and it’s a surprisingly sunny day, as if the sun is trying to cheer us up at the end of the year. The past year has been a rollercoaster ride full of ups and downs for me, with lots of personal challenges like moving to a new apartment, recovering from COVID-19, and cutting ties with some toxic family members. I am also still mourning the death of my lat ..read more

Happy New Year’s, everyone! I have a very short awards eligibility list this year, which includes a nonfiction essay about the Chinese speculative fiction genre of wuxia and a speculative poem. Please consider me for any categories the pieces are eligible for. Also, please note that I am based in Canada so I qualify for the Aurora Awards as well. My essay “What Speculative Fiction Writers Can Learn From the Origins and Evolution of the Wuxia Genre“, originally published in the October 2021 SFWA Bulletin, then reprinted on the SFWA website, is eligible for awards categories like the Best Relat ..read more

The publication Where the Leaves Fall reached out to me to solicit a translation submission from me a while back. They followed up after their request in ONE DAY when I didn’t reply, asking for a submission, and I took time out of my busy schedule (while I already dealing with the stress of settlement discussions with the British Museum over copyright issues) to send them several poems to choose from. In my very first email to the publication, I linked to this guide that explained how copyrights and contracts work for publishing translation, which clearly states specifically that permission is ..read more

Update on June 30, 2023: Please donate to hold the British Museum accountable for copyright and moral rights infringement and the erasure of feminist poet Qiu Jin Update on June 22, 2023: I have a new book of poetry translations and essays on translation entitled The Lantern and the Night Moths, forthcoming in Spring 2024 with Invisible Publishing, which includes some translations of Qiu JIn’s poetry and an essay on translating her work. Please consider checking it out and pre-ordering. Thanks so much.  These translations were originally published on the LA Review of Books – China Channel ..read more

I recently had to deal with a very unfortunate and unprofessional incident where a Canadian literary magazine published a poem translation of mine without providing me or the author contracts to secure our written permissions before they went to print. The translated text was also published without the Chinese source text because they declined to do so. I have decided to publish the original text and my translation on my own website here, in the form that the work is meant to appear. Please support our work by reading this approved version instead. Thank you. It’s truly a delight to present th ..read more

As a translator who has published various translations of fiction and poetry in literary magazines, both in print and online, in Canada and internationally, I often find myself in the position of having to explain how translation contracts, rights, and editing work over and over again to dozens of editors and magazines. I have written this guide as a basic overview and resource to help assist editors and literary magazines I am working with who may be new to publishing work being translated into English in North America and beyond. This guide is built on the knowledge that I have gained workin ..read more

The first 2.5 months of 2022 has been such a wild rollercoaster ride. I have a ton of updates and news on my writing and translation work.  The Lantern and the Night Moths  My chapbook The Lantern and the Night Moths / 灯与夜蛾 won Collusion Books’ inaugural Tafseer Chapbook Prize for chapbook-length manuscripts of poetry translated into English by BIPOC & racialized translators. The chapbook includes my translations of poems written by five modern and contemporary Chinese poets. It gives you an overview of my interests as a translator and my work over the past two years. It’s forthc ..read more