Justin Chin was born in Malaysia in 1969. He attended the University of Hawaii. He moved to San Francisco in the early 1990s and became part of the spoken-word scene. His poetry collections included Bite Hard, Harmless Medicine, and Gutted, which won the Publishing Triangle's Thom Gunn Award for Poetry. He also wrote several essay collections including Attack of the Man-Eating Lotus Blossoms, Burden of Ashes, and Mongrel: Essays, Diatribes, and Pranks and the story collection 98 Wounds. He died after suffering a stroke on December 24, 2015 at the age of 46.
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