Darien Gee

Five-time Penguin Random House novelist with translations in eleven languages. Recipient of Poetry Society of America's Chapbook Fellowship

Darien Gee is a multi-genre author who has published five novels with Penguin Random House that have been translated into eleven languages. She served as executive editor for the anthology Nonwhite and Woman: 131 Micro Essays on Being in the World and is the author of the micro essay collection Allegiance. She is currently writing a book for Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons series.

Her work has been recognized with a Poetry Society of America’s Chapbook Fellowship for Other Small Histories, a Hawaiʻi Book Publishers’ Ka Palapala Poʻokela Award of Excellence for Writing the Hawaiʻi Memoir, and IPPY awards for both Nonwhite and Woman (Silver, Multicultural Nonfiction) and Allegiance (Bronze, Essays). She has been supported by a Sustainable Arts Foundation grant and a Vermont Studio Center fellowship.

Darien teaches creative nonfiction at UCLA Extension and was the Third Mark Twain Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at the University of Connecticut in 2023. She currently serves on the boards of Short Reads, the Flash Fiction Institute Advisory Board, and the Hawaiʻi Island Leadership Council for the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation. She lives and writes from the Big Island of Hawaiʻi with her family.

She specializes in helping writers learn and master the art of micro prose—300-word narratives that build both craft skills and publication opportunities across any genre. Through her Substack Writer-ish, she teaches how writers can use short forms to follow their creative curiosities without being constrained by industry expectations.

Darien lives and writes from the Big Island of Hawaiʻi with her family. Learn more at dariengee.com and writer-ish.com. On Substack, find her at Writer-ish with Darien Gee.