Abigail Hing Wen

Abigail Hing Wen (邢立美; born 1977) is an American novelist, writer and speaker. Her debut young-adult novel, Loveboat, Taipei, was purchased in a multi-house auction by HarperCollins^[1] in a major two-book deal.^[2] It debuted on the New York Times Bestseller List^[3] where it remained for multiple weeks and was optioned for film by ACE Entertainment,^[4] millennial content creators of the Netflix adaptation of Jenny Han's To All The Boys I've Loved Before.

Loveboat, Taipei follows the journey of an Asian-American teen whose parents send her from Ohio to Taipei to study Mandarin for the summer at a program nicknamed Loveboat. It is a coming-of-age story exploring love, family, multifaceted identity and intersectionality. Wen’s companion novel, Loveboat Reunion,^[5] follows two of the main characters from Loveboat, Taipei as they reconnect and write their own futures on an wild, unexpected reunion. The novel draws inspiration from Wen’s work in Silicon Valley, with a girl trying to navigate her fashion interests and interests in AI.

Wen is working on her third novel.

Wen works in Silicon Valley. Her other writings have appeared in Fortune and Forbes and she speaks on venture capital, artificial intelligence and leadership in domestic and international forums.

Early life[]

Abigail Hing Wen was born Abigail Geraldine Lim Hing in Wheeling, West Virginia, the daughter of immigrants. Her father, Yung-Luy (Ray) Hing, emigrated from Indonesia at the age of thirteen and attended the University of Michigan. He is a former chemical engineer and works in US-China business development. Her mother, Barbara Lim Hing, emigrated from the Philippines and served as a school teacher.

Her paternal family name Xing (邢) has two hypothesized sources: the royal family of the Zhou Dynasty in China and the Dafu (zh:大夫) Han Xuanzi of the State of Jin.

Her maternal grandparents are from Xiamen, China. Her maternal grandfather, Amado Lim, was a self-made businessman and philanthropist who co-founded the Metropolitan Medical Center in Manila and served as its first chairman.

She has a younger brother and sister who are twins.

Education[]

Wen grew up in Solon, Ohio, where she attended public school. Her interests included speech and debate, Science Olympiad, ballet, piano, dance and show choir. Wen graduated valedictorian and delivered her class commencement speech.

She was selected as one of 120 U.S. Presidential Scholars, high school seniors invited to Washington DC to meet then President Bill Clinton. As a Presidential Scholar, she was invited by the Taiwanese government to attend the study tour program at Chien Tan, which eventually formed the setting of her first novel, Loveboat, Taipei.

Wen studied at Harvard University, earning her B.A. magna cum laude in government and international relations. She wrote her senior thesis on China under Professor Roderick MacFarquhar, a former member of the British Parliament.[2] She served on the student governing board of the Harvard Institute of Politics (IOP), under the directorship of then Senator Alan Simpson and senior advisory leadership of Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy, among other public servants.

Wen earned her JD at Columbia Law School and MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts, studying under Newbery Honor and National Book Award finalist Kathi Appelt, Printz Honor A.M. Jenkins, and Martine Leavitt. Her critical thesis on addressing social justice in the young adult contemporary novel received the honorable mention distinction.

Career[]

Literary career[]

In 2019, Wen's debut novel, Loveboat, Taipei, sold in a multi-house auction to HarperCollins, for a two-book deal. It debuted at #9 the New York Times Bestseller List^[3] where it remained for multiple weeks and has been optioned for film by ACE Entertainment.^[4]

Abigail Hing Wen and Loveboat, Taipei have been featured in Entertainment Weekly,^[6] Bloomberg Newsroom,^[7] NBC Bay Area Show,^[8] World Journal^[9], and the South China Morning Post.^[10] The novel appeared on a number of Most Anticipated lists including,The Boston Globe^[11], Book Riot, Bustle,^[12] BuzzFeed, The UK Evening Standard,^[13] The Nerd Daily, Seventeen,^[14] and She Reads^[15].

Loveboat, Taipei was selected as a Barnes & Noble Young Adult Book Club Pick^[16] and it appeared at number 1 on Cosmopolitan's 25 Best Audiobooks of 2020 list.^[17]

She signed with her agent, Joanna Volpe, after receiving an overnight and multiple offers of representation. She had previously queried her agent ten years prior with her first novel, and received a hand-marked printout of her manuscript with a critique that encouraged her writing journey.

In September, 2020, Wen went to a research trip to Taipei, from where she gave an interview^[18] for ABC7 News. In the interview, she talked about the quarantine and how Taipei is successfully handling the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as her thoughts on Justice Ginsburg and the judicial nominations.

In June 2021, Wen was featured in the Forbes AI Ethics series, where she talked about her role in Partnership on AI, as well as her upcoming literary works. Her second novel, Loveboat Reunion, comes out in January 2022,^[19] as well as The Idiom Algorithm, a short story she wrote for the Macmillan Serendipity anthology. Wen is currently working on her third novel, which is planned for 2023.^[20]

Silicon Valley career and leadership[]

Wen works in venture capital and artificial intelligence in Silicon Valley.

Her writings on AI have appeared in Fortune and Forbes.

She speaks on venture capital and artificial intelligence in domestic and international forums.

Wen has worked on multi-billion dollar deals on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley. She has worked with over 100 startup companies over their life cycles, from incorporation to acquisition or IPO and trains board members and executives.

Wen serves as a board observer for Two Bit Circus, a Los Angeles-based virtual reality entertainment company.

She serves as co-chair of the Partnership on AI Expert Working Group for Fairness, Transparency and Accountability.

Wen hosts the podcast Intel on AI,^[21] through which she is targeting an NPR and C-Suite audience. Her guests have included legendary founders in the field, such as Andrew Ng and Yann LeCun, as well as Google DeepMind, US Congress, The World Bank and leading AI faculty at MIT, Stanford, and University of California, Berkeley.

Prior to moving to Silicon Valley, Wen spent ten years in Washington DC, working on Capitol Hill for the Senate Judiciary Committee, as a law clerk to the Honorable Judge Judith W. Rogers on the United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, and in private practice at the international law firms of Sullivan & Cromwell and Covington & Burling.

Personal life[]

Abigail Hing Wen is married to Andrew Wen, a graduate of Princeton University who attended Loveboat a few years before her. They live in the San Francisco Bay area.

Bibliography[]

Novels[]

Loveboat, Taipei. HarperCollins (2020)^[22]

Loveboat Reunion. HarperCollins (2022)^[23]

Short stories[]

The Idiom Algorithm. Macmillan Serendipity anthology (2022)^[24]

References[]