Bio:

My name is Angela Santiago Chung. I find that my name reflects my Asian American high achiever background as it takes me forever and a day to write my name (even now as I’m typing, I’m winded).

I was born in Los Angeles, and am half Filipino and half Korean. My parents met in a Laundromat in L.A., an event that has given me a love for Tide and clean men. I decided to make things more fractional for my future children (because Asians are good at math) by marrying an Irish American bloke.

Being first generation Asians, my parents were fluent in their respective native languages, but their common language was English. So my knowledge of both languages is comprised of basic baby words (e.g.: hungry, water, full, etc.) and curse words.

Like every Asian kid, I grew up playing the piano (it was either that or the violin), but I retired (aka grew bored) at the age of 12. But then, much to my parents’ dismay, I discovered the electric guitar and songwriting! Contrary to my parents’ wishes of becoming a doctor, lawyer or engineer, I decided that I wanted to major in music and creative writing in college. This, however, was too horrific for them. So then I decided to try teaching, which I thought would be better, but seemed, ironically, equally horrific for them.

The single most defining event in my life while at college was becoming a born-again Christian. My mom, who had raised me and my brothers as Roman Catholic, disapproved of the conversion and said 100 Hail Marys to appeal, ironically, to the God whom I now knew personally.

Intent on changing the world, I graduated with a BA in Liberal Studies with my emphases being education and sociology. The fanfare from my parents was less than enthusiastic, but more emphatic than when I had dyed my hair blue. Encouraged by this display, I sought my fortune in Fullerton as a grade school teacher. It wasn’t there. Thus ending my career as a teacher.

My experience as an educator, though, would ironically open up an opportunity for me to go back to one of my first loves – writing! I ended up working for AIMS, an educational multimedia company, watching instructional videos and creating study guides for those videos. It was like getting paid to learn! To this day, I can recall that “tundra” is the Finnish word for “barren land”.

Writing for AIMS then led to my being one of the many listing editors for Yahoo (yes, as in the other search engine). It’s a hard to be reminded that my Yahoo stock options haven’t allowed me to retire yet.

Now, for my Clark Kent job, I work as a tech writer while for my Superman job, I work, writing a middle grade novel with my husband, who happens to also be Superman.

Writer
Associate
Member since 2011
Region: California: Los Angeles County

Contact Information

Email:  angela@heavensburning.com
Current Location:   Pasadena

Published In Children's Market: No