Tanya Ko Hong

Born and raised in South Korea, Tanya (Hyonhye) Ko Hong (고현혜) is an internationally published poet, playwright, translator, and cultural-curator who champions bilingual poetry and prose. She is the author of five books, including The War Still Within (KYSO Flash Press, 2019) which includes a sequence of poems based on the experiences of the Korean “comfort women'' who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. Her poetry appears in Rattle, Beloit Poetry Journal, WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly (The Feminist Press), the Choson Ilbo, and The Korea Times, among others. Tanya’s work has won the Dritëro Agolli award at the International Korçare Poetry Festival, Yun Doon-ju Korean-American Literature Award, Ko Won’s 10th Literary Award was a finalist in Frontier’s Chapbook Contest, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. In 2015, her segmented poem, “Comfort Woman,” received an honorable mention from the Women’s National Book Association; she has expanded it into a play which was previewed by Tabula RaSa at the NYC Theater and Performance Lab. In 2015 and 2018, she became the first person to translate and publish Arthur Sze’s poems in Korean. Tanya has taught her own generative poetry workshops ”Joy of Creation” and “Two Lands, Two Languages, Two Minds” for the New York 53rd Street Library, International Women’s Writers Guild and elsewhere. She has also organized and hosted the East Meets West multilingual poetry reading in Los Angeles and New York. Tanya holds an MFA Degree in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles.