Thuy Da Lam was born in Qui Nhơn, grew up in Philadelphia, and now lives in Honolulu, where she works on her next book and teaches at Kapi‘olani Community College.
She holds a BA in creative writing from Hamilton College and a PhD in English from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. She received the George A. Watrous Literary Prize for Fiction, the Myrle Clark Writing Award, and the John Young Scholarship in the Arts. Fire Summer is a revision of her dissertation, part of which appeared in Lost Lake Folk Opera in commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War.