R. O. Kwon is the author of the nationally bestselling novel Exhibit, a New York Times Editors’ Choice and a recipient of the Lambda Literary Prize. Kwon’s nationally bestselling first novel, The Incendiaries, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Award and the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Prize. Kwon co-edited the bestselling Kink, and her books have been translated into seven languages and named a best book of the year by over forty publications. She has written for The New York Times, New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and elsewhere. Kwon has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Library in Paris, MacDowell, and Yaddo.

Kwon will be a 2026-2027 Visiting Scholar at the Graduate Theological Union. She has been the Stein Visiting Writer at Stanford University, the Mary Routt Chair of Writing at Scripps College, and a Distinguished Visiting Writer at Saint Mary’s College. She co-founded and teaches with The Ministry of Words. Born in Seoul, Kwon has lived most of her life in the United States.