Born in Hangzhou, China, Lien came to Canada in 1984 to pursue her graduate studies at York University in Toronto. She completed her M.A. in 1986 and her Ph.D in English 1995. Her first book, Beyond Silence: Chinese Canadian Literature in English (1997) won 1997 Gabrielle Roy Award for Canadian Criticism. Her second book, Maples and the Stream (1999) is a long narrative poem written in English and Chinese. Her third work, Tiger Girl (Hu N) (2001), a creative memoir, covers thirty-five years of recent Chinese history with a large cast of thirty some characters, most of them, women. In 2003, she edited Strike the Wok: An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Canadian Fiction (2003) with her… co-editor Jim Wong-Chu. Another bilingual poetry collection in English and Chinese, More Than Skin Deep, was published in fall 2004. She also curates art exhibitions, writes art criticism, and edits art books for publication. A Collection of Ma Peng 's Chinese Brush Painting was published in Taiwan in 1997. China-Canada Friendship Sculpture Garden was published by Beijing Foreign Language Press in 2004. Two new art books on Chinese Brush Painting will be published in 2008 in Canada by TSAR. She is a member of the Writers ' Union of Canada and Asian Writers ' Workshop; a board member for the Chinese Pen Society of Canada, and Canadian Foundation for Asian Culture (Central Ontario) Inc.