Annabel Annuo Liu was born in Shanghai, China. A bilingual writer, she has published My Years as Chang Tsen: Two Wars, One Childhood in English and eight collections of literary essays and short fiction in Chinese. She wrote feature stories, in-depth interviews, and columns for various newspapers and magazines in this country, including the Iowa Des Moines Register. Liu won a Dahua Evening News literary essay contest and two Liang Shiqiu literature translation competitions. A recipient of several Iowa Press Women awards, including a first prize for her cover story in the Sunday Register's Picture Magazine, she also taught journalism at Iowa State University in Ames and University of Tennessee in Knoxville.