Co-Founder Kaitlin Solimine is an award-winning writer and China specialist. Raised in New England, she has considered China a second home for almost two decades. While majoring in East Asian Studies at Harvard University, she was a Harvard-Yenching scholar and wrote and edited Let’s Go: China (St. Martin’s Press). She has been a U.S. Department of State Fulbright Creative Arts Fellow in China, Donald E. Axinn Scholar in Fiction at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference (2010), and an excerpt from her forthcoming first novel, Empire of Glass, won the 2012 Dzanc Books/Disquiet International Literary Program award judged by Colson Whitehead. Her fiction and non-fiction has been published in National Geographic News, Guernica Magazine, Kartika Review, The Huffington Post, The World of Chinese Magazine, China Daily, and numerous anthologies. She lives in Singapore and is represented by William Clark Associates. Why I love working for Hippo: Hippo readily combines my life’s two most abiding passions—academic thought and practical, on-the-ground problem solving. I love being a part of such an inspiring and intelligent team. My favorite academic work: I’ve got a soft spot for modern philosophy, which is why I keep works by Jacques Derrida and Judith Butler on nearby shelves. I also love discourse that straddles disciplines, like Trinh Minh Ha’s Woman, Native, Other. In another life, I’d be a: Pianist. Marine Biologist. Ambassador. Wait—I have to choose one? Aside from the mighty hippo, my favorite animal is the: Red-crowned crane—on my bucket list: to see one in Hokkaido.
