Athena Chu is a writer and artist from Greater Boston. She received her B.A. in English Literature from Princeton University. Her poetry has been published in the Nassau Literary Review. She lived in Bolivia for a year documenting the realities and surrealities of gender-based violence through film. Upon returning to the states she made her first short film titled “In a Beautiful Country, Mothers Grow,” which regards her family history in America. She worked at Ravens Used Books in Harvard Square before it moved out towards Western Massachusetts.

Her dreams involve studying Chinese, Ancient Greek, German, and returning to Spanish. She inhabits some present tense as an artist. She reads in order to live, draws in order to think, paints in order to see time, and writes not to be in order. Her thesis is both a long poem and a drama, a collection titled “Character of She: a Shadow Play in Two Acts,” tracing the relationship between a daughter, her mother, and her friend. The drama explores the complexities of desire and care between filial piety and friendship. The strength of desire for a mother tongue may transform the language of one’s origins into another species. Chinese characters are butterflies flying through a vast field of the English language while three voices weave themselves through the roots of two languages.

contact: athenasophiachu@gmail.com

instagram: athenaschu

postscript:

As a child I loved to write letters. If you write me a letter with your own words, I’ll write to you with mine.

Any and all errors are my own. I take full responsibility.