Please join the Humanities Center, Illuminations, and the MFA in Writings programs on Thursday, January 29th to welcome authors David McGlynn and Elaine Hsieh Chou to the UC Irvine campus. McGlynn will discuss their novel "Everything We Could Do." Chou will discuss their short story collection "Where Are You Really From?"
David McGlynn (B.A., 1998) is the author of the novel, Everything We Could Do, the collection of stories, The End of the Straight and Narrow, and the memoirs, One Day You'll Thank Me and A Door in the Ocean. His writing appears in The New York Times, Washington Post, The American Scholar, Men’s Health, Best American Sports Writing, and elsewhere. In addition to his books, David’s a columnist for Swimmer magazine. Another novel, Liberal Arts, will appear in 2026, followed by the nonfiction book, The Channel: The History, Science, and Insanity of the World’s Most Famous Swim, in 2028. He teaches at Lawrence University and lives in Madison, Wisconsin.
Elaine Hsieh Chou is a Taiwanese American author and screenwriter from California. Her debut novel DISORIENTATION was a NYT Editors' Choice Book, NYPL Young Lions Finalist and Thurber Prize Finalist. Her short story collection WHERE ARE YOU REALLY FROM was recently named a 2025 Best-of-Year Selection by Time, Electric Literature and NPR. She has been supported by the Rona Jaffe Foundation, NYFA, Sundance Institute and Hedgebrook.