About Me
Dr. Stephanie Han is an award-winning author, editor of the woman. warrior. writer. Substack, and creator of the Divorce Story Structure a writing framework that helps women to write their divorce stories for their legal and personal files as seen in Oprah Daily.
Her recent work featured in Honolulu Magazine, Andover Magazine, Embodied (NPR), and HONOLULU NOIR . Publishers Weekly called her story “a standout”. She is a contributing editor for The Hawaiʻi Review of Books.
Swimming in Hong Kong won the Paterson Fiction Prize, Spokane Prize, and was the sole finalist for AWP’s Grace Paley Prize. The collection was shortlisted for the Asian Books Blog Award, and won awards from The South China Morning Post, Nimrod International Journal, and Santa Fe Writer’s Project. A former PEN and VONA fellow, Han received grants from the LA Dept. of Cultural Affairs, and was the inaugural English Literature PhD of City University of Hong Kong. She writes, surfs, and teaches on Oahu, home of her family since 1904.
My Life
I was born in St. Louis, MO. My mother, Marie Ann (Han) Yoo, is a third-generation Korean American from Hawai’i, and my father, Dr. Tai-June Yoo is from Seoul, Korea. Dad got drafted after getting his U.S. green card and this, combined with his medical research career meant that we lived in many places: Korea, Iowa, New York, and Tennessee. I have two sisters: Christine, born in Buffalo, NY and Katherine, born in San Francisco, CA.
Most of my elementary school years were in Iowa, although we made trips to Hawai’i to visit the ‘ohana, and I entered Phillips Academy Andover at age 13. I went on to Barnard College–the last class before Columbia admitted women, and left after two years. When I returned to finish my degree at University of California Santa Barbara, I was living in Los Angeles, studying acting and writing poetry. I won a grant from the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs to author a poetry chapbook, L.A. (Lovers Anonymous) and another to write a novel.
After graduation, I sojourned to Korea. I learned what it meant to belong in different parts of the world. Life unfolded: I married, had a child, wrote, published, and found myself moving back and forth between the US and Hong Kong. I went to San Francisco State University (MA), worked as a journalist and communications writer, provided content for Netnoir–the first African American online company, was a PEN Emerging Voices Fellowship and attended VONA, and attended University of Arizona (MFA). I taught K-12 and university, and settled into life in Hong Kong and earned my Ph.D. in English literature at the City University of Hong Kong. I moved back to Hawai’i, and published my fiction collection Swimming in Hong Kong.
The exact same stories and even the manuscript that went on to win awards and prizes were the ones that were passed on hundreds of times.
After 20 years I divorced and began life as a single parent. Divorce rewired my entire system and I was obliged to closely examine the influence of narrative on my life. I learned to surf, studied hula, and focused on raising my kid. I returned to journalism and communications, and taught secondary and university.
I got curious: since we are more than 123 years from gender parity how does one function in society as a woman?
I began the woman. warrior. writer. newsletter to learn from women authors, and to explore writing and health. I wrote HOW TO WRITE YOUR DIVORCE STORY to help women with their divorce process.
My purpose and mission became clear: to empower women through narrative. How? By writing stories and providing women, in particular, with tools to help them write their stories.