Evan Wang (王潇) was the 9th National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States, the first male and Chinese individual to hold this title, and author of Slow Burn (Northwestern University Press, 2026). He is the youngest winner selected by Chris Abani and Susannah Young-ah Gottlieb for the Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize and a GLAAD 20 under 20 honoree. His work appears in POETRY Magazine, The Kenyon Review, Poets.org, RHINO, Sixth Finch, Waxwing, The Margins, The Harvard Advocate, and elsewhere. Deemed a “prodigy” by Teen Vogue, Evan has been recognized by The White House, the Academy of American Poets, and more.

Evan has earned invitations to perform and speak at the U.S. Department of Education, the Smithsonian Institution, Google DeepMind Headquarters, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, and the Miami Book Fair, as well as at festivals such as Wawa Welcome America and the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. In 2025, Evan was celebrated at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City for International Youth Day and was invited to London to speak at Google's AI for Learning Forum, where he met Sir Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Featured in Poetry & The Creative Mind 2026 alongside Maggie Rogers, Chloé Zhao, Louise Erdrich, and other esteemed guests, Evan is the recipient of two National YoungArts Awards, a Scholastic National Gold Medal, the Coca-Cola Scholarship, and was a commended 2024 Foyle Young Poet of the Year.