Dao Strom is the author of Grass Roof, Tin Roof and The Gentle Order of Girls and Boys. She is also a writer of songs; she writes and records as The Sea and The Mother.
The New Yorker praised Strom's story collection,The Gentle Order of Girls and Boys, as being "quietly beautiful...hip without being ironic."
Her latest work is a hybrid literary/music/art project, an experimental memoir, We Were Meant To Be A Gentle People, accompanied by an album, East/West. This project received a 2014 RACC Grant and a 2013 Oregon Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship.
Previously, she has been the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, a James Michener Fellowship and the Nelson Algren Award, among other recognitions. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop.
Dao Strom was born in Vietnam and grew up in the Sierra Nevada foothills of California. She lives in Portland, OR.