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How I Went from Managing the FRONT DESK of a Motel to Becoming a Best-Selling, Award-Winning Author!
Kelly Yang talks about finding the courage to write FRONT DESK, her multiple award-winning, bestselling series, breaking down barriers for Asian American authors and what representation in literature means for the next generation. ...
Learning / Being an Expert in the Art of the Pivot
When life throws you curveballs, how to curve right back, and see opportunity in a new way.
The Take: A Hard Look at How We Think of Aging
Why are we so obsessed with youth? What does it matter how old someone was when they achieved something? Similarly, do we over-value experience? In this stirring talk, Kelly probes us to think about our relationship with aging, and how it shapes our society and our personal happiness.
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Kelly Yang is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of over 14 books for children, teens and adults, including The Take, the Front Desk series (Front Desk, Three Keys, Room to Dream, Key Player, Top Story, and Chef’s Secret), New From Here, Finally Seen, Finally Heard, Parachutes, Private Label, as well as the picture books Yes We Will: Asian Americans Who Shaped This Country and Little Bird Laila.
With over 2 million copies sold to date, the Front Desk series has changed the landscape of children’s literature. Based on Kelly’s childhood experience living and working in a motel as a first-generation immigrant child from China, the Front Desk series authentically describes the immigrant experience through its heart-warming, spunky protagonist, 10-year-old Mia Tang. Named “one of the 30 most influential children’s books of all time,” Front Desk has won some of the most prestigious awards in literature, including the 2019 Asian Pacific American Award for Literature, the Parents' Choice Gold Medal, was the 2019 Global Read Aloud, and many other honors.
Kelly immigrated to America when she was 6 years old and grew up in Southern California, where she and her parents worked in three different motels. She went on to attend college at the age of 13 and law school at the age of 17. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley and Harvard Law School, where she was one of the youngest women ever to graduate. Her experience going to school early provided Kelly a unique perspective on aging, which she used to write The Take, her adult debut novel, forthcoming in Spring 2026 from Berkley/Penguin in the US, and Little, Brown in the UK. The Take is about two women, a young Asian American writer in her 20s, struggling to be taken seriously, and a white powerful Hollywood producer in her 50s, clinging to relevancy. Both are tired of being judged by society for their age. They make a deal that upends their lives. The Take interrogates not just the way we look at aging, but how it intersects with power, privilege and race.
Kelly is the founder of The Kelly Yang Project in Hong Kong, the leading writing and debating program for kids in Asia. She’s written op-eds for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic. In addition to being a novelist, she is also a screenwriter. She has written screenplays and television pilots for Netflix, CBS Studios, and the CW. She has three children and lives in Los Angeles. In 2023, she served as the Honorary Chair of the American Library Association for National Library Week.
A passionate and dynamic speaker, Kelly has appeared on Good Morning America, NPR, NBC, ABC, and frequently gives interviews to The New York Times, Oprah Magazine, as well as many other publications.
My Speaker List
