Tan Lin is a writer who has worked across multiple mediums and genres including poetry, creative nonfiction, literary criticism, and fiction. Throughout his work he explores reading practices, and what he calls “ambient literature”—a mode of literature rather than a distinct genre, one that is permeable, mood-based, and disables rigid genre distinctions. He has authored over 12 books. He received a 2012 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant for Poetry, a Getty Distinguished Scholar Grant for 2004-2005, and a Warhol Foundation Arts Writing Grant. His book, 7 Controlled Vocabularies and Obituary 2004. The Joy of Cooking received the Association for American Studies Award for Poetry/Literature in 2010, and work was selected for inclusion in Best American Experimental Writing 2016. His video and film works have been screened/exhibited at Artists Space, Performa, Yale Art Museum, MoMA/PS 1, and the Ontological Hysterical Theatre. A solo exhibition was held at Treize Gallery in Paris in 2017. He teaches creative writing at New Jersey City University, served as Visiting Literary Arts Digital Writer at Brown University in 2018, and as guest lecturer at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Lyon. He received his Ph.D from Columbia University.