I live in Seattle, where it rains a lot and there is plenty of grey sky conducive to bouts of reverie — a fitting place for a former engineer who is overly fond of words. My favorite words used to be iridescent, loosely, and peal. They were later joined by melancholy, pleasure, chiaroscuro, and Michaelmas.

I prefer Moore over Mealy state machines, dark chocolate over milk, Fitzgerald over Hemingway.

For many years I designed ASIC chips for medical ultrasound systems, often as one of the few women in the room. Now I write literary fiction that lives in the space between rigid technical logic and the poetry I never stop loving.

My debut novel, Many Earths, is a literary speculative thriller about Fiona Ly, a Vietnamese-American chip engineer who sees her reflection move half a second late — the first sign that a pharmaceutical cover-up, a missing physicist aunt, and another version of herself may all be connected. It is complete at 89,000 words and currently seeking representation. You can read an excerpt and learn more at xbnbooks.com.

I have written about the intersection of engineering and poetry on this blog since 2009. My current essays appear biweekly on Substack. I am also a Hugo House New Works Competition runner-up.

Ba Nguyen