Michelle Tu is a Second Reader for Polyphony Lit, and a high school senior at High Tech High School in Secaucus, NJ. She enjoys taking the 127 bus to New York (which is just across the Hudson River and a mere 12 minute drive from her house!) to explore the city, drink bubble tea, and visit her cousin in Queens. She also visits the Bronx every once in a while to watch her favorite team play—go Yanks!

 

You can (primarily) find Michelle on Netflix, binge-watching Jane the Virgin (Team Rafael, thank you for asking), The Office, or Gilmore Girls. She is also starting to watch Chinese dramas like Meteor Garden, which make her feel very connected to her Chinese culture.

 

Michelle doesn’t mind reading Shakespeare and F. Scott Fitzgerald in her English classes, but would much rather stick to her bread and butter, young adult fiction. She has read everything from Percy Jackson to Fangirl to To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (which, she would like to point out, she read in the 8th grade, before Peter K. was trending on Twitter). Michelle’s literary idol is Jenny Han; she adores her beautiful language and three-dimensional characters. She also adores Jenny’s ability to bring tears of both joy and sadness to her eyes, within the same page.

 

Michelle is very passionate about social inequity and is a proud intersectional feminist. You may find her heatedly debating about white privilege or the gender pay gap at any given moment.