Lydia Kang
Lydia Kang is an American author and internal medicine physician, best known for the historical novel Opium and Absinthe: A Novel and the medical non-fiction book Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything, which she co-wrote with Nate Pedersen.
Lydia Kang | |
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Born | Baltimore, Maryland, United States |
Occupation | Internal medicine physician and novelist |
Language | English |
Nationality | American |
Period | 2009–present |
Genre |
Life and education
Lydia Kang was born in Baltimore, Maryland.[1][2] She graduated from Roland Park Country School in 1989 and received her BA from Columbia University.[3] She was a research assistant at the Columbia University Department of Biology during her undergraduate years and in graduate school.[4] She received her MD from New York University Grossman School of Medicine in 1998.[5] After completing a primary care internal medicine residency at New York University's Langone Department of Medicine, she served as chief resident from 2001 to 2002[6][7] before staying on as an attending physician at Bellevue Hospital.[8][9] In 2006, she moved to Omaha, Nebraska with her family and is an associate professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.[3]
Career
In 2009, she joined the writing workshop The Seven Doctors Project at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.[6] After writing two novels, she sold her third, a young adult science fiction novel, Control, to Penguin Random House in 2011[6][10] which subsequently released in 2013. The sequel, Catalyst, was published in 2015.[6] In 2017, she released three more books, A Beautiful Poison, Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything (co-written with Nate Pedersen),[11][1][12] and The November Girl.[13] The November Girl won a 2018 Nebraska Best Book Award for Young Adult Literature.[14] Quackery was a Science Friday Best Science Book of 2017.[15] Her young adult novel, Toxic, was published in 2018 and was a YARWA Athena Award winner for speculative fiction and a Junior Library Guild selection.[16] She also published three more adult historical fiction novels, including The Impossible Girl[17] in 2018, Opium and Absinthe in 2020,[18] and The Half-Life of Ruby Fielding in 2022.[19]
Her second co-written nonfiction book, Patient Zero: A Curious History of the World's Worst Disease, was published in 2021 and received a starred review from Publishers Weekly.[20] It was the 2022 winner of the Nebraska Book Award in the NonFiction Popular History category.[21]
Her writing is included in the young adult anthology, Color Outside the Lines: Stories about Love.[22] Her short story, Right-Hand Man, is included in the 2020 anthology From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back, which describes the critical scene in The Empire Strikes Back in which 2-1B attached Luke Skywalker's prosthetic hand.[23] In 2022, StarWars.com announced the addition of Kang to their Phase II multimedia project[24] for the novel, Cataclysm.[25] In 2023, her short story "The Call of Coruscant" was released in Star Wars: The High Republic Tales of Light and Life, a Young Adult anthology.
She has helped other writers with medical accuracy in their fiction.[26] She has also published poetry and essays in JAMA,[27] The Canadian Medical Association Journal,[28][29] Flatwater Free Press,[30] Journal of General Internal Medicine,[31] The Annals of Internal Medicine,[32] Great Weather for Media,[33][34] and the Linden Review.[35]
Works
- Young Adult Novels
- Control (Dial Books, Penguin Random House, 2013)
- Catalyst (Kathy Dawson Books, Penguin Random House, 2013)
- The November Girl (Entangled Publishing, 2017)
- Toxic (Entangled Publishing, 2018)
- Star Wars: The High Republic - Tales of Light and Life (Disney Lucasfilm Press, 2023)
- Short Stories
- Yuna and the Wall in Color Outside the Lines: Stories about Love (Soho Press, 2019)
- The Right-Hand Man in Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back (Random House Worlds, 2020)
- Adult Novels
- A Beautiful Poison (Lake Union Publishing, 2017)
- The Impossible Girl (Lake Union Publishing, 2018)
- Opium and Absinthe: A Novel (Lake Union Publishing, 2020)
- The Half-Life of Ruby Fielding (Lake Union Publishing, 2022)
- Star Wars: Cataclysm (Del Rey Books, 2023)
- Adult Nonfiction
- Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything (Workman Publishing, 2017)
- Patient Zero (Workman Publishing, 2022)
References
- Kang, Lydia. "Quackery". C-Span. C-Span. Retrieved November 16, 2017.
- Kang, Lydia (October 5, 2017). "Q&A With Lydia Kang". Women Writers, Women's Books. Women Writers, Women's Books. Retrieved October 5, 2017.
- "Lydia Kang, MD". UNMC Nebraska Medicine. College of Medicine.
- Kang, Lydia; Marin, Melanie; Kelly, Darcy (1995). "Androgen Biosynthesis and Secretion in Developing Xenopus laevis". General and Comparative Endocrinology. 100 (3): 293–307. doi:10.1006/gcen.1995.1160. PMID 8775056.
- Kang, Lydia. "Dr. Lydia Kang, MD". US News Health. US News.
- Brown, Chuck (January 10, 2012). "Dr. Kang Lands Fiction Deal with Penguin, credits Seven Doctors Project". University of Nebraska Medical Center. UNMC Newsroom. Retrieved January 10, 2012.
- Kang, Lydia. "Kang, Lydia". UNMC. UNMC. Retrieved January 10, 2012.
- Kang, Lydia. "Residents' Work Hours". Annals of Internal Medicine. Annals of Internal Medicine. Retrieved November 2, 2004.
- "Kang, Lydia". UNMC. UNMC. Retrieved January 10, 2012.
- Kang, Lydia. "A Literary Prescription for Success". Omaha Magazine. Omaha Magazine. Retrieved December 19, 2018.
- "Tales from the Annals of Medical Quackery". CBS News. CBS News. Retrieved April 26, 2020.
- Kang, Lydia. "'Quackery' Chronicles How Our Love Of Miracle Cures Leads Us Astray". NPR. NPR. Retrieved October 15, 2017.
- Kang, Lydia. "The November Girl". Kirkus. Kirkus. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
- Kang, Lydia. "Celebrate Nebraska's 2018 Book Award Winners at December 1st Celebration". Official Nebraska Government Website. Nebraska Library Commission. Retrieved October 10, 2018.
- Kang, Lydia. "The Best Science Books of 2017". Science Friday. Science Friday. Retrieved December 8, 2017.
- Kang, Lydia. "Toxic". JLG. Junior Library Guild. Retrieved February 1, 2019.
- Kang, Lydia. "'The Impossible Girl' review: A Marvelous Medical Mystery". Hypable. Hypable. Retrieved September 19, 2018.
- "Opium and Absinthe". Publishers Weekly. Publishers Weekly. Retrieved April 8, 2020.
- Kang, Lydia. "The Half-Life of Ruby Fielding". Historical Novel Society. Historical Novel Society. Retrieved May 1, 2022.
- Kang, Lydia. "Patient Zero: A Curious History of the World's Worst Diseases". Publishers Weekly. Publishers Weekly. Retrieved November 10, 2021.
- Kang, Lydia. "Patient Zero: A Curious History of the World's Worst Diseases". The Nebraska Center For The Book. The Nebraska Center for the Book. Retrieved September 22, 2022.
- Kang, Lydia (August 4, 2019). "Review: 'Color Outside the Lines' anthology". The Nerd Daily. The Nerd Daily. Retrieved August 4, 2019.
- "About the Author". Penguin Random House. Penguin Random House.
- Kang, Lydia (April 13, 2022). "Star Wars: The High Republic Phase II Cover Art Revealed on Star Wars: The High Republic Show". StarWars.com. StarWars.com. Retrieved April 13, 2022.
- "Review: Lydia Kang Delivers a High Republic Masterpiece in Star Wars: Cataclysm". Star Wars News Net. Star Wars News Net.
- Croft, Hallie (January 9, 2018). "The Physician Who Pens YA Fiction Novels About Magic and Medicine". Op-Med. Op-Med. Retrieved January 9, 2018.
- Kang, Lydia (2009). "The First Wake". JAMA. Jama Network. 301 (5): 467–468. doi:10.1001/jama.2009.61. PMID 19190306. Retrieved February 4, 2009.
- Kang, Lydia (2010). "Returns". Canadian Medical Association Journal. CMAJ Group. 182 (11): E538. doi:10.1503/cmaj.100434. S2CID 220296624. Retrieved August 10, 2010.
- Kang, Lydia. "A Lost Aunt" (PDF). CMAJ Group. CMAJ Group. Retrieved September 6, 2011.
- Kang, Lydia (September 24, 2021). "A Nebraska Doctor Was Writing A History of Nightmare Pandemics. Then She Lived One". Flatwater Free Press. Flatwater Free Press. Retrieved September 24, 2021.
- Kang, Lydia (2010). "An Infinite Fraction". Journal of General Internal Medicine. National Library of Medicine. 25 (7): 754. doi:10.1007/s11606-010-1343-8. PMC 2881971. PMID 20383752.
- Kang, Lydia (2006). "The Veil". Annals of Internal Medicine. 145 (12): 932. doi:10.7326/0003-4819-145-12-200612190-00012. PMID 17179062. S2CID 42428639. Retrieved December 19, 2006.
- "The Understanding Between Foxes and Light". Great Weather for Media. Great Weather for Media. Retrieved August 1, 2013.
- "Q&A with Lydia Kang". Women Writers, Women's Books. Women Writers, Women's Books. Retrieved October 5, 2017.
- Kang, Lydia. "Lydia Kang, Check Your Head". The Linden Review. The Linden Review.