Andrew Lam fled Vietnam with his family during the fall of Saigon in April 1975 when he was 11 years old. He attended the University of California, Berkeley studying biochemistry but abandoned plans for medical school after graduation. He entered the creative writing program at San Francisco State University instead. While still in school he began writing for Pacific News Service and in 1993 won the Outstanding Young Journalist Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. He wrote for many newspapers and magazines since, including the National Geographic Traveler, the Los Angeles Times Magazine and The Nation. A regular commentator on NPR's All Things Considered for over 7 years, Lam is the author of 3 books, and has won the Pen Open Book Award and The Josephine Miles Literary Award and many others. He served as a Journalism Fellow at Stanford 2001-02. In 2004 a PBS documentary about his life called "My Journey Home" in which a film crew followed him back to Vietnam was aired nationwide. Lam is working on a novel and a memoir about his childhood in Vietnam during the war. He has lectured at many universities and colleges and taught as a writer in residence at San Jose State University in 2015-2016. He lives in San Francisco.