Lydia Kang is an American author of adult and young adult fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. She is also an internal medicine physician, and practices internal medicine in Omaha, Nebraska.

Lydia Kang
BornBaltimore, Maryland, United States
OccupationInternal medicine physician and novelist
LanguageEnglish
NationalityAmerican
Period2009–present
Genre

Life and education

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Lydia Kang was born in Baltimore, Maryland.[1][2] She graduated from Roland Park Country School in 1989 and received her BA from Columbia University.[3] She was a research assistant at the Columbia University Department of Biology during her undergraduate years and in graduate school.[4] She received her MD from New York University Grossman School of Medicine in 1998.[5] After completing a primary care internal medicine residency at New York University's Langone Department of Medicine, she served as chief resident from 2001 to 2002[6][7] before staying on as an attending physician at Bellevue Hospital.[8][9] In 2006, she moved to Omaha, Nebraska with her family and is an associate professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.[3]

Career

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In 2009, she joined the writing workshop The Seven Doctors Project at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.[6] After writing two novels, she sold her third, a young adult science fiction novel, Control, to Penguin Random House in 2011[6][10] which subsequently released in 2013. The sequel, Catalyst, was published in 2015.[6] In 2017, she released three more books, A Beautiful Poison, Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything (co-written with Nate Pedersen),[11][1][12] and The November Girl.[13] The November Girl won a 2018 Nebraska Best Book Award for Young Adult Literature.[14] Quackery was a Science Friday Best Science Book of 2017.[15] Her young adult novel, Toxic, was published in 2018 and was a YARWA Athena Award winner for speculative fiction and a Junior Library Guild selection.[16] She also published three more adult historical fiction novels, including The Impossible Girl[17] in 2018, Opium and Absinthe in 2020,[18] and The Half-Life of Ruby Fielding in 2022.[19]

Her second co-written nonfiction book, Patient Zero: A Curious History of the World's Worst Disease, was published in 2021 and received a starred review from Publishers Weekly.[20] It was the 2022 winner of the Nebraska Book Award in the NonFiction Popular History category.[21]

Her writing is included in the young adult anthology, Color Outside the Lines: Stories about Love.[22] Her short story, Right-Hand Man, is included in the 2020 anthology From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back, which describes the critical scene in The Empire Strikes Back in which 2-1B attached Luke Skywalker's prosthetic hand.[23] In 2022, StarWars.com announced the addition of Kang to their Phase II multimedia project[24] for the novel, Cataclysm.[25] In 2023, her short story "The Call of Coruscant" was released in Star Wars: The High Republic Tales of Light and Life, a Young Adult anthology.

She has helped other writers with medical accuracy in their fiction.[26] She has also published poetry and essays in JAMA,[27] The Canadian Medical Association Journal,[28][29] Flatwater Free Press,[30] Journal of General Internal Medicine,[31] The Annals of Internal Medicine,[32] Great Weather for Media,[33][34] and the Linden Review.[35]

Works

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Young Adult Novels
  • Control (Dial Books, Penguin Random House, 2013)
  • Catalyst (Kathy Dawson Books, Penguin Random House, 2013)
  • The November Girl (Entangled Publishing, 2017)
  • Toxic (Entangled Publishing, 2018)
  • Star Wars: The High Republic - Tales of Light and Life (Disney Lucasfilm Press, 2023)
Short Stories
  • Yuna and the Wall in Color Outside the Lines: Stories about Love (Soho Press, 2019)
  • The Right-Hand Man in Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back (Random House Worlds, 2020)
Adult Novels
  • A Beautiful Poison (Lake Union Publishing, 2017)
  • The Impossible Girl (Lake Union Publishing, 2018)
  • Opium and Absinthe: A Novel (Lake Union Publishing, 2020)
  • The Half-Life of Ruby Fielding (Lake Union Publishing, 2022)
  • Star Wars: Cataclysm (Del Rey Books, 2023)
Adult Nonfiction
  • Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything (Workman Publishing, 2017)
  • Patient Zero (Workman Publishing, 2022)

References

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  1. ^ a b Kang, Lydia. "Quackery". C-Span. C-Span. Retrieved November 16, 2017.
  2. ^ Kang, Lydia (October 5, 2017). "Q&A With Lydia Kang". Women Writers, Women's Books. Retrieved October 5, 2017.
  3. ^ a b "Lydia Kang, MD". UNMC Nebraska Medicine. College of Medicine.
  4. ^ Kang, Lydia; Marin, Melanie; Kelly, Darcy (1995). "Androgen Biosynthesis and Secretion in Developing Xenopus laevis". General and Comparative Endocrinology. 100 (3): 293–307. doi:10.1006/gcen.1995.1160. PMID 8775056.
  5. ^ Kang, Lydia. "Dr. Lydia Kang, MD". US News Health. US News.
  6. ^ a b c d Brown, Chuck (January 10, 2012). "Dr. Kang Lands Fiction Deal with Penguin, credits Seven Doctors Project". University of Nebraska Medical Center. UNMC Newsroom. Retrieved January 10, 2012.
  7. ^ Kang, Lydia. "Kang, Lydia". UNMC. Retrieved January 10, 2012.
  8. ^ Su, Yungpo Bernard (2004). "Residents' Work Hours". Annals of Internal Medicine. 141 (9): 741. doi:10.7326/0003-4819-141-9-200411020-00029. PMID 15520442. Retrieved November 2, 2004.
  9. ^ "Kang, Lydia". UNMC. Retrieved January 10, 2012.
  10. ^ Kang, Lydia. "A Literary Prescription for Success". Omaha Magazine. Retrieved December 19, 2018.
  11. ^ "Tales from the Annals of Medical Quackery". CBS News. April 26, 2020. Retrieved April 26, 2020.
  12. ^ Kang, Lydia. "'Quackery' Chronicles How Our Love Of Miracle Cures Leads Us Astray". NPR. Retrieved October 15, 2017.
  13. ^ Kang, Lydia. "The November Girl". Kirkus. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
  14. ^ Kang, Lydia. "Celebrate Nebraska's 2018 Book Award Winners at December 1st Celebration". Official Nebraska Government Website. Nebraska Library Commission. Retrieved October 10, 2018.
  15. ^ Kang, Lydia. "The Best Science Books of 2017". Science Friday. Retrieved December 8, 2017.
  16. ^ Kang, Lydia. "Toxic". JLG. Junior Library Guild. Retrieved February 1, 2019.
  17. ^ Kang, Lydia. "'The Impossible Girl' review: A Marvelous Medical Mystery". Hypable. Retrieved September 19, 2018.
  18. ^ "Opium and Absinthe". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved April 8, 2020.
  19. ^ Kang, Lydia. "The Half-Life of Ruby Fielding". Historical Novel Society. Retrieved May 1, 2022.
  20. ^ Kang, Lydia. "Patient Zero: A Curious History of the World's Worst Diseases". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved November 10, 2021.
  21. ^ Kang, Lydia. "Patient Zero: A Curious History of the World's Worst Diseases". The Nebraska Center For The Book. Retrieved September 22, 2022.
  22. ^ Kang, Lydia (August 4, 2019). "Review: 'Color Outside the Lines' anthology". The Nerd Daily. Retrieved August 4, 2019.
  23. ^ "About the Author". Penguin Random House.
  24. ^ Kang, Lydia (April 13, 2022). "Star Wars: The High Republic Phase II Cover Art Revealed on Star Wars: The High Republic Show". StarWars.com. Retrieved April 13, 2022.
  25. ^ "Review: Lydia Kang Delivers a High Republic Masterpiece in Star Wars: Cataclysm". Star Wars News Net.
  26. ^ Croft, Hallie (January 9, 2018). "The Physician Who Pens YA Fiction Novels About Magic and Medicine". Op-Med. Retrieved January 9, 2018.
  27. ^ Kang, Lydia (2009). "The First Wake". JAMA. 301 (5). Jama Network: 467–468. doi:10.1001/jama.2009.61. PMID 19190306. Retrieved February 4, 2009.
  28. ^ Kang, Lydia (2010). "Returns". Canadian Medical Association Journal. 182 (11). CMAJ Group: E538. doi:10.1503/cmaj.100434. PMC 2917968. S2CID 220296624.
  29. ^ Kang, Lydia. "A Lost Aunt" (PDF). CMAJ Group. Retrieved September 6, 2011.
  30. ^ Kang, Lydia (September 24, 2021). "A Nebraska Doctor Was Writing A History of Nightmare Pandemics. Then She Lived One". Flatwater Free Press. Retrieved September 24, 2021.
  31. ^ Kang, Lydia (2010). "An Infinite Fraction". Journal of General Internal Medicine. 25 (7): 754. doi:10.1007/s11606-010-1343-8. PMC 2881971. PMID 20383752.
  32. ^ Kang, Lydia (2006). "The Veil". Annals of Internal Medicine. 145 (12): 932. doi:10.7326/0003-4819-145-12-200612190-00012. PMID 17179062. S2CID 42428639. Retrieved December 19, 2006.
  33. ^ "The Understanding Between Foxes and Light". Great Weather for Media. Retrieved August 1, 2013.
  34. ^ "Q&A with Lydia Kang". Women Writers, Women's Books. October 5, 2017. Retrieved October 5, 2017.
  35. ^ Kang, Lydia. "Lydia Kang, Check Your Head". The Linden Review.