Hello! I'm Irene, and I write about female rage, unruly women, and the many facets of the immigrant experience. I've been writing screenplays since I was a wee teen scamping about the rainforests of the Pacific Northwest. But in 2023, everything changed when I fell in love with fiction. One thing led to another, and now I'm revising my debut novel about a young Chinese woman in 1880s Northern California who escapes sex trafficking and seeks revenge on her abuser. 

In 2025, I was a Tin House Scholar, an Edith Wharton & Straw Dogs Writers Guild Writer-in-Residence at The Mount, and a finalist for One Story's Adina Talve-Goodman Fellowship in Fiction. Previously, I've received support from Stowe Story Labs and Fulbright Morocco.

I work as a tutor and script consultant in Los Angeles. For a peek at my published writing, see my selected work. Ask me about languages, mushroom foraging, whiskey, and the time I lived with a circus in Casablanca. 

Please enjoy this picture of me as a rageful and unruly immigrant girl.

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