Ching-In Chen

I am a cross-genre writer with a community organizing background, specifically in Asian American communities in coalition with other communities of color and LGBTQIA* communities. I am committed to transformative justice practices, which seek community-based solutions to deal with harm and violence without resorting to the criminal justice system. In developing our collective imagination towards growth and liberation, central questions are – what is our relationship and responsibility to each other through time and history? What do we want, dream it to be? Thinking through these questions necessitates continual practice to imagine other ways to respond to harm in day-to-day interactions.

Currently, I live and practice on Coast Salish lands. I am part of the organizing core for Massage Parlor Outreach Project, a grassroots formation organized to support migrant massage and sex workers in the Seattle area. I work to build skills and leadership to respond to sexual violence, including how to facilitate community-based healing and accountability processes through API Chaya’s Community Solutions program. I am also part of Alphabet Alliance of Color, an organizing alliance of two spirit, black, brown, disabled, femme, gender non-conforming, indigenous, pasifika, queer, trans, people of color.

My goal is to hold the container for our mutual storytelling and dreaming practices; my creative work arises from these community investments. My goals as a community-based writer are to learn, honor and share artistic lineages I did not have access to as a young writer, specifically traditions and aesthetics of writers of color and queer/trans writers.