Cameron Quan (he/him)

Zoe Lambert

Cameron Quan is a multidisciplinary writer based in Tucson. He is the author of "Repair Attempts" and the award-winning chapbook "Apology Engine." His poems, essays, and visual art appear in The Rumpus, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Best New Poets, Quarterly West and The Margins among others. He holds an M.F.A. from the University of Washington and an M.Ed. from the University of Arizona. His work explores Asian American identity, the borderlands, pop culture, gender, and the subjectivities of the archive through text and image.

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Communities: Arizona Author, Tucsonan, Gender Nonconforming, Asian American, Mixed Race

Book:

Repair Attempts

Poems
Poetry
Curbstone Press
January 2027
ISBN 9798899481079
Paperback, 120 pages

The titular “repair attempts” describes the words and actions people use to heal broken connections and de-escalate conflict. In his debut collection, Cameron Quan transforms this concept into a powerful lens for examining moral responsibility in contemporary America. Quan’s Repair Attempts navigates Asian American identity, American exceptionalism, patriarchal violence, grief, and the nature of apologies. The speakers grapple with transgression and healing from unexpected angles, asking what kind of repair is possible in a world marred by atrocities. These poems dance across landscapes—from an imagined American holiday of atonement to the pope’s apology to Indigenous peoples, from a mother preparing to flee domestic violence to an unsettling childhood game boys play with butterflies. A chorus of repair attempts that toggle between the personal and political, this collection invites us into difficult territory where failure, wrongdoing, and shame require a collective reckoning and a collective effort to be better. More/less