Photography by Michael Baca
Chaney Kwak is a Korean-American writer in Seattle.
His first book, The Passenger: How a Travel Writer Learned to Love Cruises & Other Lies from a Sinking Ship, arrived in June, 2021 and garnered praises from The Washington Post, Afar, and many other publications. Click here for the buttoned-up version of the bio his publisher made him write.
Before returning to Seattle via San Francisco, Chaney spent six years in Berlin where he failed to experiment with drugs or get into famed techno clubs. He did discover his love for exploration by sneaking into places like decommissioned Soviet military bases and the former Iraqi Embassy on Tschaikowskistraße. He broke into the world of professional travel writing by reporting on an abandoned East German amusement park for The New York Times.
Fast-forward ten years, he was freelancing for magazines like Travel + Leisure when he boarded the infamous Viking Sky cruise ship that lost power in the middle of a storm, charging straight toward the shore. After aging considerably during the 27 hours drifting at sea, he returned to California, where he now dedicates his time to more sedate pursuits like beekeeping and writing a book.
Find him in…
GROWN-UP BIO
Chaney Kwak has written for publications such as The New York Times, Condé Nast Traveler, Food & Wine, Travel & Leisure, and a number of National Geographic anthologies. His fiction has appeared in Zyzzyva, Catamaran Literary Review, Gertrude, and other literary journals, earning a special mention from the Pushcart Prize.
A winner of the Key West Literary Seminar Emerging Writer Awards, Kwak has received scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and was a Friends of the San Francisco Public Library Brown Handler Resident.
He teaches nonfiction writing at the Stanford Continuing Studies program.
Illustration by Joe McKendry