BookDragon About the Blogger

Terry Hong is the former Media Arts Consultant for the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center. She served as the project director of the 2003 Smithsonian Korean American Centennial Commemoration. She remains the resident BookDragon after ‘retiring’ from APAC in June 2010. She was also an inaugural member of APAC’s Advisory Board.

Terry has written extensively on about books, theater, film, and the Asian Pacific American experience. These days, it’s all about the books. She recently won American Library Association’s 2021 CODES Louis Shores Award for excellence in book reviewing. She is the former Chair of ALA’s Booklist Advisory Board.

Terry’s publication credits include American Theatre, Booklist, Christian Science Monitor, Dallas Morning News, Library Journal, The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, School Library Journal, Shelf Awareness, The Washington Post, among many others. She was theater columnist and books editor for aMagazine: Inside Asian America, and the books columnist for AsianWeek. Library Journal named Terry “Reviewer of the Year 2016” for both Fiction and Audio.

She co-authored two books, Eastern Standard Time: A Guide to Asian Influence on American Culture from Astro Boy to Zen Buddhism with Jeff Yang and Dina Gan, and What Do I Read Next? Multicultural Edition with Rafaela G. Castro, Edith Maureen Fisher, and David Williams. Chapter credits include Notable Asian Americans edited by Helen Zia and Susan B. Gall; The Asian American Almanac edited by Irene Natividad and Susan B. Gall; The Columbia Companion to American History on Film: How Introduction to Ethnic Studies: A Reader edited by Philip Q. Yang; and Active Reading Skills edited by Kathleen McWhorter.

Terry has served and/or chaired on various book award committees, including the Andrew Carnegie Medals, USBBY’s Outstanding International Books, the Audies, and the Hans Christian Andersen Award U.S. nominations. She was a judge for two years for We Need Diverse Books’ Walter Awards, and remains involved as awards co-director.

In her past lives, Terry taught for two years in Duke University’s Leadership in the Arts, a performance and public policy program based in New York City. She’s worked in advertising and marketing, and was employee #19 at Intuit (she was still a Luddite then). She was an Advisor for Girl Rising, a global action campaign highlighting girls and education. She served as the Literary Coordinator for the film of the same name. She’s been a frequent speaker on diversity, race/ethnicity, and contemporary Asian Pacific American issues.

Terry holds degrees from Dartmouth College and Yale University.