Born in Shanghai, Ruiyan Xu moved to the United States at the age of ten without speaking a word of English. She graduated from Brown University with honors in creative writing, won the 2004 Hochstadt Award from Hedgebrook and a 2005 Jerome Foundation Fellowship for Emerging Artists, and has been awarded residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Jentel, Ragdale, and the Anderson Center. Xu lives in Brooklyn, where she works as an interactive producer atP.O.V., the independent documentary series on PBS.