Mai Nguyen is a Vietnamese Canadian author based in Toronto. Her debut novel Sunshine Nails (Atria Books/Simon & Schuster Canada) was longlisted for Canada Reads 2024, and was selected as one of the best books of 2023 by NPR and CBC.
Her second book, Cleo Dang Would Rather Be Dead, was published in April 2026. It garnered multiple starred reviews, including from Kirkus Reviews, which hailed the book as “An astonishing portrait of grief and an ode to the beauty that manages to live in its midst.”
Her non-fiction writing has appeared in Toronto Life, Oprah Daily, Wired, Washington Post, Marie Claire, Maclean’s, Toronto Star, and more. She has been nominated for a National Magazine Award twice and holds a Bachelor of Journalism from Toronto Metropolitan University.
Born in Winnipeg and raised in Halifax, Mai currently lives in Toronto with her husband, daughter, and French bulldog.
