About
Lily Chang (she/they) is a queer Taiwanese-Canadian writer, editor, singer, and director/producer based in the traditional territory of Tiohtiá:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal. This land has long been a site of meeting, story-telling, learning, and exchange for many First Nations including the Kanien’kehá:ka of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the Huron/Wendat, the Abenaki, and the Anishinaabeg, and Lily is thankful to be able to live, study, work, create, and cultivate connections and communities here.
Lily is a graduate of McGill University’s BA program in English literature and Concordia University’s MA program in English literature and creative writing. Passionate about community involvement, they have volunteered with the Québec Writers’ Federation, McGill University’s Rez Project (now known as Our Shared Spaces), the Threshold Singers of Washington DC, the Smithsonian Associates’ Studio Arts Program, and Concordia University’s Sexual Assault Resource Centre, for which she received the Concordia Leadership Initiative Volunteer Engagement Centre’s 2017 Volunteer Recognition Award. They have also been a member of the Maryland Filmmakers, Hawkeye Players Theatre Company, and Hawks' Nest Techies; the curator for Word and Colour; the Chair of Concordia University’s English Graduate Colloquium Committee; a Coordinating Committee Member of Concordia Write Nights; and the Vice President External of Chromatones a cappella choir.
Lily's writings have appeared in Room Magazine; Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop/Dark Helix Press’s Immersion: An Asian Anthology of Love, Fantasy, and Speculative Fiction; HerStry (for which she received a Pushcart Prize nomination); Dark Helix Ezine; Frog Hollow Press’s The City Series; Headlight Anthology; Word and Colour; and Voices Visible. She received a merit-based fellowship to a 2014 Summer Literary Seminars program and was a finalist for the 2018 CBC Nonfiction Prize and the Speculative Literature Foundation’s 2018 Diverse Writers Grant. They are currently a 2023-2024 Nightwood Innovator with Nightwood Theatre.
In 2021, with the support of a Canada Council for the Arts grant, Lily wrote their debut play, Leila Roils the Seas. In February 2023, Lily received dramaturgical feedback from Keshia Palm through Playwrights Guild of Canada's Playwrights Resiliency Mentorship Program. In June 2023, with support from the Canada Council for the Arts, Lily directed and produced an abridged version of Leila Roils the Seas at the St-Ambroise Montréal Fringe Festival, garnering two Frankie Award nominations (Outstanding English Production, Most Promising English Text) and one win (Most Promising Emerging English Producer). The show was also featured on CBC’s All in a Weekend with Sonali Karnick (May 27, 2023), Radyo Kapwa on CKUT 90.3 FM (May 24, 2023), twice on Montreal Rampage, and twice on Cult MTL. In December 2023, Leila Roils the Seas won first place in Infinithéâtre's annual Write-on-Q Playwriting Competition and was presented in a reading directed by Sophie Gee in Montréal. In January-February 2024, the play was presented in two staged readings in BC, as part of the Emerging Voices program with TheatreOne in Nanaimo and as part of the Advance Theatre Festival with Ruby Slippers Theatre in Vancouver. Lily is currently developing this play further with Aki Matsushita and Andrea Romaldi through Playwrights' Workshop Montréal.
Lily's other works in progress include a creative nonfiction collection funded by the Access Copyright Foundation's Marian Hebb Research Grant and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, Inc.'s Money for Women grant. Another project is a speculative, new adult novel supported by Canada Council for the Arts' Research and Creation grant and mentorship from Ruth Walker through the Canadian Artists Network.
Lily is a graduate of McGill University’s BA program in English literature and Concordia University’s MA program in English literature and creative writing. Passionate about community involvement, they have volunteered with the Québec Writers’ Federation, McGill University’s Rez Project (now known as Our Shared Spaces), the Threshold Singers of Washington DC, the Smithsonian Associates’ Studio Arts Program, and Concordia University’s Sexual Assault Resource Centre, for which she received the Concordia Leadership Initiative Volunteer Engagement Centre’s 2017 Volunteer Recognition Award. They have also been a member of the Maryland Filmmakers, Hawkeye Players Theatre Company, and Hawks' Nest Techies; the curator for Word and Colour; the Chair of Concordia University’s English Graduate Colloquium Committee; a Coordinating Committee Member of Concordia Write Nights; and the Vice President External of Chromatones a cappella choir.
Lily's writings have appeared in Room Magazine; Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop/Dark Helix Press’s Immersion: An Asian Anthology of Love, Fantasy, and Speculative Fiction; HerStry (for which she received a Pushcart Prize nomination); Dark Helix Ezine; Frog Hollow Press’s The City Series; Headlight Anthology; Word and Colour; and Voices Visible. She received a merit-based fellowship to a 2014 Summer Literary Seminars program and was a finalist for the 2018 CBC Nonfiction Prize and the Speculative Literature Foundation’s 2018 Diverse Writers Grant. They are currently a 2023-2024 Nightwood Innovator with Nightwood Theatre.
In 2021, with the support of a Canada Council for the Arts grant, Lily wrote their debut play, Leila Roils the Seas. In February 2023, Lily received dramaturgical feedback from Keshia Palm through Playwrights Guild of Canada's Playwrights Resiliency Mentorship Program. In June 2023, with support from the Canada Council for the Arts, Lily directed and produced an abridged version of Leila Roils the Seas at the St-Ambroise Montréal Fringe Festival, garnering two Frankie Award nominations (Outstanding English Production, Most Promising English Text) and one win (Most Promising Emerging English Producer). The show was also featured on CBC’s All in a Weekend with Sonali Karnick (May 27, 2023), Radyo Kapwa on CKUT 90.3 FM (May 24, 2023), twice on Montreal Rampage, and twice on Cult MTL. In December 2023, Leila Roils the Seas won first place in Infinithéâtre's annual Write-on-Q Playwriting Competition and was presented in a reading directed by Sophie Gee in Montréal. In January-February 2024, the play was presented in two staged readings in BC, as part of the Emerging Voices program with TheatreOne in Nanaimo and as part of the Advance Theatre Festival with Ruby Slippers Theatre in Vancouver. Lily is currently developing this play further with Aki Matsushita and Andrea Romaldi through Playwrights' Workshop Montréal.
Lily's other works in progress include a creative nonfiction collection funded by the Access Copyright Foundation's Marian Hebb Research Grant and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, Inc.'s Money for Women grant. Another project is a speculative, new adult novel supported by Canada Council for the Arts' Research and Creation grant and mentorship from Ruth Walker through the Canadian Artists Network.
Lily Chang acknowledges the support of the Access Copyright Foundation, Canadian Artists Network, Playwrights' Workshop Montréal, Canada Council for the Arts, Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, Inc., and Playwrights Guild of Canada.
