Shawna Yang Ryan is the author of Green Island (Knopf), an Amazon Best Book of the Month and Boston Globe Pick of the Week, and Water Ghosts (Penguin Press), a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller. A recipient of an American Book Award, she previously served as Director of the Creative Writing Program and Associate Professor of English at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Drawing on nearly two decades as a teacher, she now works as an editor and writing coach in Northern California.