Ng received the
Pushcart Prize in 2012 for her story "Girls, At Play". Her fiction has appeared in
One Story,
TriQuarterly, and
Subtropics. Her essays have appeared in
Kenyon Review Online,
The Millions, and elsewhere. Ng taught writing at the University of Michigan and at
Grub Street in
Boston. Ng also was an editor of blogs at the website
Fiction Writers Review for three years. The novel had four drafts and one revision before completion, which took six years. Working on it, Ng said she drew upon her own experiences of racism as well as her family and friends. The book, which the
Los Angeles Times called an "excellent first novel about family, love, and ambition," won Amazon's
book of the year award in 2014 and was a
New York Times Notable Book of 2014. It has been translated into 15 languages. Ng's second novel,
Little Fires Everywhere, is set in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and follows two families, one a mother and daughter, that challenge the boundaries and culture of the town. It follows a 12 year-old boy of Chinese descent named Bird who rediscovers his dissident mother's art. The novel released in October 2022. == Personal life ==