Kat Tang is a former lawyer turned fiction writer with an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University.

Her debut novel, FIVE-STAR STRANGER, has been featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition and People Magazine, received starred reviews from Kirkus and Booklist, been selected as a Belletrist Book Club pick, is an Oprah’s Book Club Must Read, and an Indie Next pick among others.  

Her work has also appeared in The New Yorker, Electric Literature, The Margins, and Pigeon Pages. She spends most of her time thinking about what to eat next and sometimes she even writes.

She currently teaches at Columbia University and is hard at work on a second novel. 

About

WRITING AWARDS AND RECOGNITION

  • Fellowship to Story Studio 2025

  • Columbia’s Our Word Fall 2024 Writer-in-Residence

  • Granum Prize 2024 Longlist

  • Scholarship to Sewanee Writer’s Conference

  • Nominated for Best of the Net Award

  • A Public Space Fellowship Longlist

  • Nominated for PEN/Dau Best Debut Short Story 

  • Second Place for Momaya Press Short Story Contest 

  • Honorable Mention for Pigeon Pages Short Story Contest; Judged by Julia Phillips

  • Distinction for Disquiet Literary Contest 

  • Nominated for De Alba Award at Columbia University

  • Fish Anthology Longlist