Short Bio

Dr. Ryan Thorpe is a novelist, essayist, and poet from the United States who lives and teaches in Shanghai, China. He is the author of The Willows fantasy trilogy (The Willows, Arcadian Midnight, and The Warden), published by Aethon Books. His first scholarly book, Teaching Creative Writing to Second Language Learners, was published by Routledge. In 2026 he published Writing Through Revision, a four-book textbook series on revising academic writing, fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction, with Anthem Press, and received two writing residencies.

He is Director of Academic Writing and the Writing Center at Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Global College, where he holds two endowed professorships, including the Yu Liming Endowed Professorship of Writing. He is also the executive director of Inkwell, a literary collective that holds free and public writing workshops in China and throughout Asia (www.inkwell.asia). His cultural commentary has appeared in The Global Times, China Daily, and Sixth Tone, and he has published in numerous literary journals.