Minfong Ho was born in 1951 in Rangoon, Burma. Ho spent her childhood in Singapore and Thailand. As a result, she is fluent in three different languages ; English, Thai and Chinese. Ho attended Tungai University in Taiwan before transferring to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. In 1973 she received a
degree in history and economics from Cornell. While there, she began a short story called “Sing to the Dawn.” She didn't expect many people to read the story. She wrote it because she missed Thailand. Eventually, she entered it into a short story contest. Ho won an award and was asked to turn the story into a novel, which was published in 1975.
After graduating, Ho returned to Asia and worked as journalist in Singapore. In 1976 Ho married John Value Dennis Jr. and moved back to Ithaca, New York. There she earned a master’s degree in creative writing from Cornell and worked as a teaching assistant.
In 1980 Ho saw images of Cambodian war refugees on television. She took a leave
of absence from her teaching job and went to work as a nutritionist and relief worker for Catholic Relief Services on the Thai-Cambodian border. This experience helped her to write The Clay Marble (1991).