In 1979, Chen was born in San Diego, California, to a Taiwanese American family.

[1] In 2001, Chen earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature from the University of California, Berkeley.

In 2005, Chen earned his Juris Doctor from Yale Law School.

[2] Chen was an editor of Arts & Letters Daily while at Berkeley and worked at Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP after law school.

[3] His writing has been published the Art Asia Pacific, Boston Review of Books, Manoa, Field, Pleiades,[4] and Barrow Street, Bridge, Radical Society, 5 Fingers Review,[5] and Palimpsest.