AAWWTV: Stubborn Dirty Snow with Can Xue and Porochista Khakpour Asian American Writers Workshop 2017-11-09 | 0:00 AAWW Executive Director Ken Chen introduction4:42 Porochista Khakpour reading31:54 Can Xue reading1:41:16 Q&AOn Oct. 18th, 2016, AAWW hosted a night with Can Xue, one of China’s edgiest avant-garde fiction writers, as well as one of the country’s most significant women writers. Susan Sontag called Can Xue the most likely possibility of a Chinese Nobel Laureate, and Robert Coover called her “a new world master.” She discusses her work with novelist Porochista Khakpour, who writes in Buzzfeed about reading her first story by Can Xue and finding it one of the “strangest, most haunting stories I had ever encountered.”After her family was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, Can Xue emerged as the 1980s literary explosion in China called the High Culture Fever. As Dylan Suher writes in Asymptote: “But unlike her contemporaries, who sought out an untainted primitive past or aimed to record the traumas of the Cultural Revolution, Can Xue has no interest in Chinese folklore or politics. The bold innovations of her oeuvre—executed in a colloquial yet writerly style that emphasizes the rapid shifts in space and narrative logic—surpass the experimentation of her Chinese contemporaries are sometimes even more adventurous than those of the Western modernist writers she so admires.” Influenced by Butoh and Modernists like Kafka, Borges, Calvino, and Musil, Can Xue is the author of Five Spice Street (Yale University Press 2012), which follows “an enigmatic ‘Madame X’ in Xue’s first novel-length work to be published in English” in a book that blends surrealism à la Dali with a hefty dose of existential angst” (Booklist) and The Last Lover (Yale University Press 2014), which won the Best Translated Book Award for Fiction and Book of the Year from The Independent, which praised Can Xue as “a maverick outsider” capable of “mind-stretching enchantments.” (The former was translated by Karen Gernant and Zeping Chen; the latter by Annelise Finegan Wasmoen.) As Can Xue told Asymptote, “I turn towards the dark abyss of consciousness and plunge in, and in the tension between those two forces, I build the fantastic, idealist plots of my stories.” “Can Xue” is a pen name that means “stubborn, dirty snow.”Porochista Khakpour’s debut novel Sons and Other Flammable Objects (Grove/Atlantic, 2007) was a New York Times “Editor’s Choice,” Chicago Tribune “Fall’s Best,” and 2007 California Book Award winner. Her second novel, The Last Illusion (Bloomsbury, 2014), won a place on a number of “best of” lists, being a Kirkus Best Book of 2014, a Buzzfeed Best Fiction Book of 2014, and an NPR Best Book of 2014. Check out an interview with her in AAWW’s The Margins. http://aaww.org/studio-visit-page-turner-edition-porochista-khakpour--http://aaww.orghttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshophttp://twitter.com/aawwAAWW is a national not-for-profit arts organization devoted to the creating, publishing, developing and disseminating of creative writing by Asian Americans–in other words, we’re the preeminent organization dedicated to the belief that Asian American stories deserve to be told.We’re building the Asian literary culture of tomorrow through our curatorial platform, which includes our New York events series and our online editorial initiatives. In a time when China and India are on the rise, when immigration is a vital electoral issue, when the detention of Muslim Americans is a matter of common practice, we believe Asian American literature is vital to interpret our post-multicultural but not post-racial age. Our curatorial take is intellectual and alternative, pop cultural and highbrow, warm and artistically innovative, and vested in New York City communities.Our curatorial platform is premised on the idea of a big-tent Asian American cultural pluralism. We’re interested in both the New York publishing industry and ethnic studies, the South Asian diasporic novel and the Asian American story of assimilation, high culture and pop culture, Lisa Lowe and Amar Chitra Katha, avant-garde poetry and spoken word, journalism and critical race theory, Midnight’s Children and Dictee. We are against both an exclusive literary culture that believes that race does not exist and Asian American narratives that lead to self-stereotyping and limit the menu of our identity. We are for inventing the future of Asian American literary culture. Named one of the top five Asian American groups nationally, covered by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and Poets & Writers, we are a safe community space and an anti-racist counterculture, incubating new ideas and interpretations of what it means to be both an American and a global citizen.
Ephemerality & Permanence Asian American Writers Workshop 2024-09-12 | Poetry that is produced orally and poetry that is written have often been pitted as fundamentally different, the former an ephemeral, inspired process and the latter thoughtful and labored. Oral poems are uttered, only to be forgotten if not remembered, while written poems are recorded and edited, over and over again, until the poet deems them complete. This distinction then extends to how oral and written cultures are understood more generally.On Thursday September 12, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop is proud to present a prerecorded conversation between Craig Santos Perez, Ivanna Sang Een Yi, Aone van Engelenhoven, and Jan-Henry Gray, during which our esteemed speakers use poetry as a lens to discuss the way language evolves and changes. What are the differences and similarities between poems produced orally and poems that are written? How does poetry change a written tradition? How does it change an oral tradition? What role does it play in either?__Craig Santos Perez is an Indigenous Chamoru from the Pacific Island of Guam. He is the author of seven books of poetry and the co-editor of nine anthologies.Ivanna Sang Een Yi is an Assistant Professor of Korea Studies at Cornell University. As a scholar of Korean literature, culture, and performance, her research focuses on the performative dimensions of living oral traditions as they interact with written literature and the environment from the 18th century to the present. She has published on contemporary Korean poetry, the relationship of the p’ansori epic storytelling tradition and the more-than-human world, and the storying of land in the Indigenous oral traditions of the Americas.Aone van Engelenhoven holds a PhD in Linguistics from Leiden University where he now works as a University Lecturer in Southeast Asian linguistics. He has published extensively on linguistic topics in Indonesia, Timor-Leste and the Moluccan diaspora in The Netherlands. Being of Dutch-Indonesian descent he is a bilingual native speaker of Dutch and Indonesian. His present research focuses on the semiotics and mnemonics of oral storytelling and poetry and the use of Indonesian and indigenous languages for the transfer of ritual knowledge. His latest publication is an edition on oral traditions in insular Southeast Asia published a Cambridge Scholars Publishers.Jan-Henry Gray is the author of Documents (BOA Editions, Ltd.), selected by D.A. Powell as the winner A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize and the chapbook Selected Emails (speCt! Books). He’s received fellowships from Kundiman, Undocupoets, and the Cooke Foundation. He was born in the Philippines and has lived in San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, and Brooklyn. He is an Assistant Professor at Adelphi University in New York.__http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
In Celebration of I Will Greet the Sun Again Asian American Writers Workshop 2024-09-10 | Join AAWW in-person and online for a celebration of Khashayar J. Khabushani’s I Will Greet the Sun Again! Khashayar will be joined by Iranian-American writer Niki Afsar.Growing up in the San Fernando Valley with his two brothers, all K wants is to be “a boy from L.A.,” all American. But K—the youngest, named after a Persian king—knows there’s something different about himself. Like the way he feels about his closest friend, Johnny, a longing that he can’t share with anyone.At home, K must navigate another confusing identity: that of the dutiful son of Iranian immigrants struggling to make a life for themselves in the United States. He tries to make his mother proud, live up to her ideal of a son. On Friday nights, K attends prayers at the local mosque with Baba, whose violent affections distort K’s understanding of what it means to be a man and how to love.When Baba takes the three brothers from their mother back to Iran, K finds himself in an ancestral home he barely knows. Returning to the Valley months later, K must piece together who he is, in a world that now feels as foreign to him as the one he left behind.A stunning, tender novel of identity and belonging, I Will Greet the Sun Again tells the story of a young man lost in his own family, his own country, and his own skin. Staring down the brutality of being a queer kid and a Muslim in America, Khashayar J. Khabushani transforms personal and national pain into an unforgettable and beautifully rendered exploration of youth, love, family—and the stories that make us who we are.Khashayar J. Khabushani was born in Van Nuys, California, in 1992. During his childhood he spent time in Iran before returning to Los Angeles. He studied philosophy at California State University, Northridge, and prior to completing his MFA at Columbia University, he worked as a middle school teacher. This is his first novel.Niki Afsar is a nonbinary/femme, iranian-american writer and interdisciplinary artist living and working in the Washington DC area. Born in Los Angeles to Tehran-born parents and learning to speak Farsi in their mid-20s, their work explores expressions of fluidity and longing within language, hybrid/myriad identities, and mental health. Drawing influences from personal, familial, and cultural histories steeped in poetry and paradox, they experiment with a number of mediums including devised movement and performance; poetry and text; live singing and sound making; and mirror work. They are currently an artist at Red Dirt Studio in Mt. Rainier, MD and have performed at Rhizome DC and the Pie Shop DC. They were a 2023 Wherewithal Grantee and a 2024 Emerging Artist mentee at Transformer Gallery DC. nikiafsar.com--http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
Celebrating Pride with AAWW Asian American Writers Workshop 2024-08-28 | Join us on Tuesday June 25 for a celebratory reading for PRIDE on our virtual stage! This year we are featuring our co-presenter Kay Ulanday Barrett, along with Anaïs Duplan, Jas Hammonds, Jubi Arriola-Headley, and Lamya H!__Kay Ulanday Barrett is a poet, essayist, cultural strategist, & A+ Napper. They are a recipient of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Cy Twombly Award for Poetry. They have attended residences at Tin House, Millay Arts, Baldwin For the Arts, Macondo, Baldwin for the Arts, and MacDowell. Their work has been published in The New York Times, Lit Hub, them., The Hopkins Review, The Rumpus, Vogue, Brevity, and more. Their book More Than Organs (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2020) was a 2021 Stonewall Honor Book and a 2021 Lambda Literary Award Finalist. For more info: Kaybarrett.net or @brownroundboi on social media.Jas Hammonds (they/she) was raised in many cities and between the pages of many books. They have received support for their writing from the Highlights Foundation, Baldwin for the Arts and more. They are also a grateful recipient of the MacDowell James Baldwin Fellowship. Their bestselling debut novel, We Deserve Monuments, won the 2023 Coretta Scott King – John Steptoe Award for New Talent. Her second novel, Thirsty, was a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection. She lives in New Jersey.Lamya H is a former Lambda Literary Fellow whose writing has appeared in Vice, Salon, Autostraddle, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and others. Her memoir, Hijab Butch Blues, was awarded a Stonewall Book Award and the Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize. They currently live in New York, with their partner and rambunctious toddler.JUBI ARRIOLA-HEADLEY (he/him) is a Black queer poet, storyteller, first-generation United Statesian, and the author of two collections of poems: ORIGINAL KINK (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2020), recipient of the 2021 Housatonic Award, and his most recent, BOUND (Persea Books, 2024). He’s currently at work on a collection of essays, an excerpt of which received the 2023 First Pages Prize for Creative Nonfiction. Jubi lives with his husband in South Florida, on ancestral Tequesta, Miccosukee, and Seminole lands.Anaïs Duplan is a trans* poet, curator, and artist. He is the author of book I NEED MUSIC (Action Books, 2021), a book of essays, Blackspace: On the Poetics of an Afrofuture (Black Ocean, 2020), a full-length poetry collection, Take This Stallion (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2016), and a chapbook, Mount Carmel and the Blood of Parnassus (Monster House Press, 2017). He is a professor of postcolonial literature at Bennington College, and has taught poetry at The New School, Columbia University, and Sarah Lawrence College, amongst others.As an independent curator, he has facilitated curatorial projects in Chicago, Boston, Santa Fe, and Reykjavík. He was a 2017-2019 joint Public Programs fellow at the Museum of Modern Art and the Studio Museum in Harlem, and in 2021 received a Marian Goodman fellowship from Independent Curators International for his research on Black experimental documentary.He is the recipient of the 2021 QUEER|ART|PRIZE for Recent Work, and a 2022 Whiting Award in Nonfiction. He was also awarded a Black Visionaries Award by Instagram and the Brooklyn Museum in 2022. In 2016, Duplan founded the Center for Afrofuturist Studies, an artist residency program for artists of color, based at Iowa City’s artist-run organization Public Space One.__http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
In Celebration of The Land is Holy Asian American Writers Workshop 2024-08-28 | Join AAWW in-person and online for a celebration of noam keim’s The Land is Holy. noam will be joined by Palestinian American writer Sarah Aziza, and Syrian American playwright Michael Zalta.This event is in collaboration with our friends at Radix Media, a worker owned printer and publisher based in Brooklyn, NY.Arriving May 28, 2024, The Land is Holy is a debut collection of anti-zionist, abolitionist, queer essays exploring the inhabitants of the natural world through threads of trauma, colonialism, and healing. Home has meant many different things to noam keim: born a Queer Arab Jew in a settler family in Occupied Palestine, raised in the cobblestone streets of Mulhouse, France; a lifetime of escape across Europe, the foothills of the Himalayas in Nepal, Bangkok, and then the makings of a chosen family on Occupied Lenape Land, known as Philadelphia. Through it all, the memory of one’s homes, the persistence of kin persecuted across timelines, their complicity in settler colonialism, and a dogged disavowal of inherited trauma. In this staunchly anti-zionist and abolitionist project, the author considers the wounds of diaspora ache by turning to the fierce primal inhabitants of their lineage for answers.This event is part of the Poetry Coalition’s slate of programs in the spring and summer that reflect the transformative impact poetry has on individual readers and communities across the nation, and is made possible in part by the Academy of American Poets with support from the Mellon Foundation.__noam keim (they/them) is a trauma worker, medicine maker and flâneur freak. After graduating from their masters in American Visual Culture, noam moved to Ann Arbor Michigan for a fellowship. Many tribulations with immigration later, they now live on stolen Lenni-Lenape land (known as Philadelphia) where they build webs of support for individuals impacted by carceral systems. They believe that their childhood antizionist beliefs is what brought them to their abolitionist practices. Their non-fiction writing weaves themes close to their heart: reverence to the land, healing, queerness, colonialism, plants, abolition.They are a Lambda Literary ’22 Emerging LGBTQ Voices Fellow, a Roots.Wounds.Words ‘23 fellow, a Tin House Winter Workshop ‘23 participant and a Sewanee ’23 contributor. They are a Periplus ‘23 Fellow mentored by Grace Talusan and their writing as been published or is forthcoming in ALOCASIA, Foglifter, The Massachusetts Review, The Kenyon Review and others. Connect on Twitter and IG: thelandisholy or thelandisholy.com.Sarah Aziza is a Palestinian American writer who splits her time between Brooklyn and the Middle East. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the Baffler, Harper’s Magazine, the New York Times, Lux Magazine, the Intercept, the Rumpus, and the Nation, among others. Previously a Fulbright fellow in Jordan, she was a 2022 resident at Tin House Writer’s Workshop, and a 2023 Margins Fellow at the Asian American Writers Workshop. She is currently working on her first book, a hybrid work of memoir, lyricism, and oral history exploring the intertwined legacies of diaspora, colonialism, and the American dream.Michael Zalta is a queer Syrian American playwright, producer, editor, and scholar who was raised in the orthodox Syrian Jewish community of Brooklyn, New York. His dramatic writing has been developed and presented at the Lark, the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, NYU’s Jerry H. Labowitz Theater, amongst other places. His critical writing has been published by Zaman Collective and Protocols. As a producer, he has worked on several experimental films like Amanda Kramer’s, “Give Me Pity!” and Lev Kalman and Whitney Horn’s “Dream Team.” As an editor, he works closely with scholars, leftist advocacy organizations, and artists, including Ariella Aisha Azoulay and Diaspora Alliance. He is presently working toward his PhD at USC’s department of Comparative Literature and Culture, where he focuses on the aesthetics of 20th century Marxist movements in the Arab world, Palestinian cinema, and the modern history of Levantine Jewry.---http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
Poetry as Prayer: In Celebration of remembering (y)our light Asian American Writers Workshop 2024-08-28 | Join AAWW in-person and online for a celebration of poet and teacher, River 瑩瑩 Dandelion’s remembering (y)our light. River’s debut chapbook asks how we preserve intergenerational memory when the archives hold missing knowledge. In this collection, food lives as a conduit of memory, recipes hold ancestral wisdom, and poems become spells for safety. These poems honor matriarchs and elders who have lived through tumult and demonstrates how poetry can archive history. From Toisan to New York City, River’s poems delve into how we cultivate care and safety within ourselves, each other, and in community. These pieces are testament to how we address and mend intergenerational wounds to remember who we and who we came here to be.Rejoice in beautiful poetry with a reading by River 瑩瑩 Dandelion, Jasmine Reid, Jimena Lucero, and Taylor Alyson Lewis.__River 瑩瑩 Dandelion is a practitioner of ancestral medicine through writing poetry, teaching, energy healing, and creating ceremony. As a poet, he writes to connect with the unseen and unspoken so we can feel and heal. A Tin House Resident, Lambda Literary Fellow, and Kundiman Fellow, River is the author of remembering (y)our light, his debut chapbook on honoring matriarchs and ancestors. River’s work has been thrice-nominated for Best of the Net and is published in Best New Poets, The Offing, Bellevue Literary Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Margins, and elsewhere. He is the winner of the AWP Kurt Brown Prize and was a 2024 Artist-in-Residence at Headlands Center for the Arts. At its core, River’s work lives in the intersections of personal transformation towards collective liberation. He attests our stories will not be forgotten. For more, riverdandelion.com.Jimena Lucero (she/her) is a writer & cultural worker living on Lenape / Canarsie land in Queens.Jasmine Reid is a twice trans poet of flowers. She is the author of Deus Ex Nigrum, winner of the 2018 Honeysuckle Press Chapbook Contest, selected by Danez Smith. An MFA graduate from Cornell University and recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem, Poets House, and Jack Jones Literary Arts, her work has been published or is forthcoming in The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, Indiana Review, Pinwheel, TriQuarterly, and Washington Square Review, among others. Jasmine was born and raised in Baltimore, MD, and is currently based in Brooklyn, NY, where she is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute.Taylor Alyson Lewis is a writer and educator based in Philadelphia. He received the 2017 Edith A. Hambie Poetry Prize sponsored by the Academy of American Poets, the 2020 Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing Queer Writer Fellowship in Prose, and the 2023 Lili Elbe Scholarship sponsored by Lambda Literary, where he was a poetry fellow. His work appears in Nat. Brut, Poetry Online, Voicemail Poems, Columbia Journal, and elsewhere.---http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
AKA x AAWW Present: In Celebration of A Living Remedy Asian American Writers Workshop 2024-08-27 | Also-Known-As and the Asian American Writers’ Workshop are thrilled to welcome back Nicole Chung, in conversation with Crystal Hana Kim, to celebrate the paperback release of her critically acclaimed memoir A Living Remedy. From the bestselling author of All You Can Ever Know comes a searing memoir of family, class, and grief—a daughter’s search to understand the lives her adoptive parents led, the life she forged as an adult, and the lives she’s lost. Exploring the enduring strength of family bonds in the face of hardship and tragedy, Nicole Chung examines what it takes to reconcile the distance between one life, one home, and another—and sheds needed light on some of the most persistent and grievous inequalities in American society.--http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
AAWW & Kundiman Present: Emerging Writers in Conversation Asian American Writers Workshop 2024-08-27 | Join AAWW and Kundiman in-person and online for a conversation between luminous emerging writers Hannah Bae, Jen Lue, Rajat Singh, and Gina Chung!__Hannah Bae is a Korean American freelance journalist, nonfiction writer and illustrator who is at work on a memoir about family estrangement and mental illness. She is the 2020 nonfiction winner of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award and a 2021 and 2022 Peter Taylor Fellow for The Kenyon Review Writers Workshops. You can find her work in anthologies such as Our Red Book and (Don’t) Call Me Crazy and online at Asian American Writers’ Workshop’s The Margins, Catapult, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle and other outlets.Jen Lue is a former Center for Fiction/Susan Kamil Emerging Writer Fellow and a 2021 NYSCA/NYFA fiction finalist. She is the recipient of fellowships and residencies from Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Kundiman, VONA/Voices, Tin House, Jerome Foundation, and Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, among others. She works for The Moth, a storytelling nonprofit, and serves on the advisory committee for Film Forum in New York City.Gina Chung is a Korean American writer from New Jersey currently living in New York City. She is the author of the short story collection Green Frog and the novel Sea Change, which was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, a 2023 B&N Discover Pick, and a New York Times Most Anticipated Book. A recipient of the Pushcart Prize, she is a 2021-2022 Center for Fiction/Susan Kamil Emerging Writer Fellow and holds an MFA in fiction from The New School.Rajat Singh is a writer living in Brooklyn, where he is at work on a novel. His work appears in The Margins, The Believer, StoryQuarterly, Lapham’s Quarterly, LitHub, Catapult, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. He is the editor of Mehfil, a collection of writing by queer South Asian artists, forthcoming in 2024. His writing has been supported by the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, where he was a 2022 Margins Fellow, as well as by Millay Arts, the Spruceton Inn Residency, the Tin House Summer Workshop, and Lambda Literary.__http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
In Celebration of: Dear Elia Asian American Writers Workshop 2024-08-27 | This Spring, join AAWW in-person and online for a celebration of writer and scholar Mimi Khúc’s, Dear Elia, “a creative-critical book exploring mental health through a pedagogy of unwellness: the recognition that we are all differentially unwell.” Mimi will be joined by the effervescent & Jess X. Snow and Pyaari Azaadi.__Mimi Khúc is a writer, scholar, and teacher of things unwell. She is an adjunct lecturer in disability studies at Georgetown University and co-editor of The Asian American Literary Review. She is the creator of the acclaimed mental health projects Open in Emergency and the Asian American Tarot, and the author of dear elia: Letters from the Asian American Abyss, a deep dive into the depths of Asian American unwellness at the intersections of ableism, model minoritization, and the university, and an exploration of new approaches to building collective care.Jess X. Snow is a non-binary filmmaker, multi-disciplinary artist, poet. They are recent graduate of the directing MFA program at NYU. Recently named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film, their body of work reimagines queer asian diaspora, kinship across cultures and species, mental health, and abolitionist futures.Pyaari Azaadi, formerly known as J. Abichandani (she/her; b. 1969, Bombay, India) immigrated to the US in 1984. She received her MFA from Goldsmiths College, University of London. Abichandani has continued to intertwine studio and social practice, art and activism, creating transformative work with Queer, BIPoC communities in New York for three decades. She founded the South Asian Women’s Creative Collective (SAWCC) in New York (1997) and London (2004). She was awarded grants by the FST Studio Projects fund and the Foundation for Contemporary Art in 2021 and NYFA fellowship in Sculpture in 2023__http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
In Celebration of: Put It On Record Asian American Writers Workshop 2024-08-21 | Join AAWW in-person and online for a celebration of Cambodian author and opera librettist Sokunthary Svay’s, Put It On Record: A Memoir-Archive. This collection of essays and photographs explores the past present and future of Cambodian literature. Rejoice in this incredible book with an evening woven of word, song, and dance. Featuring esteemed guests Anthony Lanni and allia abdullah-matta.__Sokunthary Svay is a Cambodian poet, essayist and librettist from New York City. A founding member of the Cambodian American Literary Arts Association (CALAA), she has received fellowships from the American Opera Project, Poets House, Willow Books, and CUNY, as well as commissions from Washington National Opera, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, the Chautauqua Institution, and ISSUE Project Room. She is a doctoral candidate in English at the CUNY Graduate Center and a Lecturer at CCNY in Harlem. Author of a poetry collection and three opera libretti, her hybrid memoir, Put it on Record: A Memoir-Archive, is now available from Willow Books.Anthony Lanni is a New York City based 6 & 7-string guitarist with a focus on Brazilian and Italian music. As a soloist, Anthony performs his own instrumental, solo guitar arrangements of traditional Brazilian songs; including arrangements of compositions by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Baden Powell, Vinicius de Moraes, Milton Nascimento, Ary Barroso, and more. Anthony is also band leader of the Brazil inspired “American Samba” band, Os Clavelitos. Anthony has composed music and lyrics for several tunes on Os Clavelitos’ debut album, “Arriving”, which reached #1 on the Roots Music Report Top 50 World Chart. His band’s original music celebrates Brazil’s rich musical heritage, combining Brazilian rhythms with English lyrics.allia abdullah-matta is a poet and Professor of English at CUNY LaGuardia. She writes about the culture, and history of Black women and explores the presence of Black bodies and voices in fine art and poetry. Her poetry has been published in Newtown Literary, Promethean, Marsh Hawk Review, Mom Egg Review, Vox, Global City Review, the Jam Journal Issue of Push/Pull, and Queensbound 2024. Her do-si-do double chapbook, washed clean & blues politico was published by harlequin creatures (hcx) 2021. She is working on a poetry/hybrid collection of poems and images entitled blackprint.---http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
In Celebration of When We Become Ours: A YA Adoptee Anthology Asian American Writers Workshop 2024-04-02 | Join Also-Known-As and the Asian American Writers’ Workshop in person to celebrate When We Become Ours: A YA Adoptee Anthology, edited by Nicole Chung and Shannon Gibney. The first of its kind, When We Become Ours is a powerful and poignant story collection written by and for adoptees in a variety of styles and genres. Our celebration will feature a thoughtful discussion with contributors Rebecca Carroll, Lisa Nopachai, Matthew Salesses, and Eric Smith, moderated by Lily Philpott. We’ll have books available for purchase and signing from our dear friends at Yu & Me Books.There is no universal adoption experience, and no two adoptees have the same story. This anthology for teens edited by Shannon Gibney and Nicole Chung contains a wide range of powerful, poignant, and evocative stories in a variety of genres.These tales from fifteen bestselling, acclaimed, and emerging adoptee authors genuinely and authentically reflect the complexity, breadth, and depth of adoptee experiences. This groundbreaking collection centers what it’s like growing up as an adoptee. These are stories by adoptees, for adoptees, reclaiming their own narratives.With stories by: Kelley Baker, Nicole Chung, Shannon Gibney., Mark Oshiro, MeMe Collier, Susan Harness, Meredith Ireland, Mariama J. Lockington, Lisa Nopachai, Stefany Valentine, Matthew Salesses, Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom, Eric Smith, Jenny Heijun Wills, and Sun Yung Shin. Foreword by Rebecca Carroll and afterword by JaeRan Kim, MSW, PhD.---Rebecca Carroll is a writer, cultural critic, and host of the podcasts Come Through with Rebecca Carroll: 15 conversations about race in a pivotal year for America, and the award-winning Billie Was a Black Woman. Her memoir, Surviving the White Gaze, has been optioned by Killer Films, with Rebecca attached to write and develop for episodic TV. She is the creator and curator of the live event and audio series, In Love and Struggle, which shares the experiences of Black women through monologues, stories, music, and humor. Rebecca is the author of several interview-based books, and her first among them, I Know What the Red Clay Looks Like: The Voice and Vision of Black Women Writers, will be rereleased by Haymarket Books in 2024. Her writing has been published widely, and she is currently Editor-at-Large for The Meteor media collective. Lisa Nopachai is a Mexican-American transracial adoptee, born in Texas and raised in an Italian-American family in New Jersey. With a BA from Amherst College and an MA from Fuller Theological Seminary, Lisa has worked in the fields of child advocacy and healthcare chaplaincy, and is currently studying to become a spiritual director. She lives with her husband and two daughters in North Jersey.Matthew Salesses was adopted from Korea. He is the author of eight books, most recently The Sense of Wonder, the PEN/Faulkner finalist Disappear Doppelganger Disappear, and the national bestseller Craft in the Real World. He is an Assistant Professor of Writing at Columbia University.Eric Smith is a literary agent and author living in Philadelphia. He’s worked on New York Times bestselling and award-winning books, but hasn’t written one of those yet. Maybe someday. His books include Don’t Read the Comments, You Can Go Your Own Way, Jagged Little Pill: The Novel, and With or Without You. Born in Santiago, Chile and raised in New England, Lily Philpott is an indigenous transracial adoptee. She has worked for close to a decade in the arts and culture nonprofit sector in New York City at PEN America, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. She is a member of the Starlings Collective, a group supporting BIPOC adoptee writers; the International Literature Committee at the Brooklyn Book Festival; the curatorial committee of the 2024 PEN America World Voices Festival; and she volunteers as the Director of Programs at the nonprofit organization Singapore Unbound. Currently, she is completing her MFA in Fiction at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA). She lives in Brooklyn, and wants to know what you’re reading.---http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
In Celebration of Straw Dogs of the Universe Asian American Writers Workshop 2024-04-02 | Last December, AAWW celebrated Ye Chun’s highly anticipated novel, Straw Dogs of the Universe, featuring a conversation with author of A Burning, Megha Majumdar.Ye Chun is a bilingual Chinese American writer and literary translator. Her debut story collection, Hao, was longlisted for the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. She is also the author of two books of poetry, Travel Over Water and Lantern Puzzle; a novel in Chinese, Peach Tree in the Sea; and four volumes of translations. A recipient of an NEA Literature Fellowship, a Sustainable Arts Foundation Award, and three Pushcart Prizes, she teaches at Providence College and lives in Providence, Rhode Island.Megha Majumdar is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel A Burning, which was nominated for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize, and the American Library Association’s Andrew Carnegie Medal. It was named one of the best books of the year by media including The Washington Post, The New York Times, NPR, The Atlantic, Vogue, and TIME Magazine. A 2022 Whiting Award winner, she lives in New York and teaches at Princeton University.---http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
On Being Prolific: A Conversation Asian American Writers Workshop 2024-04-02 | Luisa A. Igloria and Eileen Tabios are not just multi-awarded authors with numerous books. The expanse of their prolific output creates its own dimension worth exploring for its impact on the literary life. On Wednesday, November 1st at 7 PM ET, AAWW Presents Eileen and Luisa in conversation about their prolific practices.Luisa has written (at least) one poem a day for almost 13 years to date; during this duration of her daily writing practice, she has published five books and four chapbooks (out of her total output to date of 19 books). Eileen has widened poetry’s expanse to encompass other genres and invented poetry forms that poets can use to create new poems for the rest of time. Join the conversation between these two writers as they explore the related subjects of time, scale, abundance (versus “output”), and finding what works best for their creativity and process.Eileen R. Tabios has released over 70 collections of poetry, fiction, essays, and experimental biographies from publishers around the world. In 2023 she released the poetry collection Because I Love You, I Become War; an autobiography, The Inventor; and a flash fiction collection collaboration with harry k stammer, Getting To One. Other recent books include a first novel DoveLion: A Fairy Tale for Our Times; two French books, PRISES (Double Take) (trans. Fanny Garin) and La Vie erotique de l’art (trans. Samuel Rochery); and a book-length essay Kapwa’s Novels. Her award-winning body of work includes invention of the hay(na)ku, a 21st century diasporic poetic form; the MDR Poetry Generator that can create poems totaling theoretical infinity; the “Flooid” poetry form that’s rooted in a good deed; and a first poetry book, Beyond Life Sentences, which received the Philippines’ National Book Award for Poetry. Translated into 12 languages, she also has edited, co-edited or conceptualized 15 anthologies of poetry, fiction and essays. Her writing and editing works have received recognition through awards, grants and residencies. More information is at http://eileenrtabios.comOriginally from Baguio City, Luisa A. Igloria‘s Caulbearer: Poems (forthcoming in 2024) was selected by Black Lawrence Press for the 2023 Immigrant Writing Series Prize. She is the author of Maps for Migrants and Ghosts (Co-Winner, 2019 Crab Orchard Open Poetry Prize, Southern Illinois University Press, 2020), The Buddha Wonders if She is Having a Mid-Life Crisis (Phoenicia Publishing, Montreal, 2018), and 12 other books. She was the inaugural recipient of the 2015 Resurgence Poetry Prize (UK), the world’s first major award for ecopoetry, selected by a panel headed by former UK Poet Laureate Andrew Motion. She is a Louis I. Jaffe Professor of English and Creative Writing in the MFA Program at Old Dominion University, and also leads workshops for and is a member of the board of The Muse Writers Center in Norfolk. During her appointed term as 20th Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia (2020-22), Emerita, the Academy of American Poets awarded her one of twenty-three Poet Laureate Fellowships in 2021, to support a program of public poetry projects. For more than 12 years (since November 2010), she has written at least a poem a day. www.luisaigloria.com ---http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
In Celebration of Why Mariah Carey Matters Asian American Writers Workshop 2024-04-02 | This October, join AAWW for a celebration of the first book to critically examine the legacy of pop superstar Mariah Carey. WHY MARIAH CAREY MATTERS examines the creative evolution and complicated biography of a true diva, making the case that, despite her celebrity, Carey’s musicianship and influence are insufficiently appreciated. Author Andrew Chan looks beyond Carey’s glamorous persona to explore her experience as a mixed-race woman in show business, her adventurous forays into house music and gospel, and her appeal to multiple generations of queer audiences. Chan will be in conversation with journalist Brittany Spanos. We’ll have books for sale from our friends at Yu & Me Books!Andrew Chan writes regularly about music, film, and books. His work has been published by the Criterion Collection, Film Comment, NPR, the New Yorker, and Reverse Shot.Brittany Spanos is a Senior Writer at Rolling Stone, with a focus on pop music and internet culture. Since starting at RS in 2015, she has written cover stories on Harry Styles, Adele, Cardi B and many more stars. Prior to taking on her role at RS, Spanos worked as the Clubs Editor at Village Voice, handling concert listings for the paper while contributing interviews and review to its music blog on both local, emerging artists as well as established stars. As a freelancer, Spanos’ work was featured in Vulture, SPIN, Pitchfork, Cosmo and Rookie Mag. She has presented at the annual Pop Conference and served on its 2021 Programming Committee. She has been teaching a class on Taylor Swift at NYU’s Clive Davis School of Recorded Music since Spring 2022. In her spare time, she dreams of a One Direction reunion.---http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
Remember To Return: A Reading and Fundraiser for Palestine Asian American Writers Workshop 2024-03-14 | Presented by The New Third World Reading Series & Asian American Writers’ Workshop, we invite you to join us for a brilliant and necessary evening of poetry toward liberation, toward love, toward memory, toward return. The event will feature readings by the incomparable Kamelya Omayma Youssef, Lara Atallah, Mariam Bazeed, Sahar Delijani, Sahar Romani, Siham Inshassi, & Tala Abu Rahmeh, emceed by Malvika Jolly. This event is a fundraiser for eSIM cards to keep Palestine online.__This lineup was created in collaboration with former Margins Fellow, Ghinwa Jawhari and Malvika Jolly of The New Third World Reading Series. The title of this event comes from Mahmoud Darwish’s poem “From: A Lover from Palestine,” translated from Arabic by B.M. Bennani.__http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
How Long Can The Moon Be Caged: Voices of India’s Political Prisoners Asian American Writers Workshop 2024-02-20 | Join AAWW and Suchitra Vijayan and Francesca Recchia for a discussion on their book HOW LONG CAN THE MOON BE CAGED: VOICES OF INDIAN POLITICAL PRISONERS, a powerful look at authoritarian India through the experiences of political prisoners. In this book, Vijayan and Recchia look at the current ladnscape of India through the stories of political prisoners ― combining political analysis with firsthand testimonies, the book explores the experiences of prisoners and their families, telling a story of destruction of institutions and erosion of rights. This conversation will be moderated by Madhuri Sastry.“At no time have governments been moralists. They never imprisoned people and executed them for having done something. They imprisoned and executed them to keep them from doing something. They imprisoned all those prisoners of war, of course, not for treason to the motherland…They imprisoned all of them to keep them from telling their fellow villagers about Europe. What the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve for.” ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956Suchitra Vijayan is an essayist, lawyer, and photographer working across oral history, state violence, and visual storytelling. She is the author of the critically acclaimed book Midnight’s Borders: A People’s History of Modern India (Melville House, New York) and How Long Can the Moon Be Caged? Voices of Indian Political Prisoners (Pluto Press). Her essays, photographs, and interviews have appeared in The Washington Post, GQ, The Nation, The Boston Review, Foreign Policy, Lit Hub, Rumpus, Electric Literature, NPR, NBC, and BBC. As an attorney, she worked for the United Nations war crimes tribunals in Yugoslavia and Rwanda before co-founding the Resettlement Legal Aid Project in Cairo, giving Iraqi refugees legal aid. She is an award-winning photographer and the founder and executive director of the Polis Project, a hybrid research and journalism organization. She teaches at NYU Gallatin and Columbia University’s Oral History Program and lives in New York.Francesca Recchia is an independent researcher, educator and writer whose work is grounded in the values and principles of decolonial philosophy and radical pedagogy. She is interested in the geopolitical dimension of heritage and cultural processes in countries in conflict. Francesca has worked in different capacities in Palestine, Pakistan, India, Kashmir, Iraq and Afghanistan. Her latest assignment in Kabul was as Acting Director of the Afghan Institute for Arts and Architecture. She is the author of How long can the moon be caged? Voices of Indian political prisoners (with Suchitra Vijayan), The Little Book of Kabul (with Lorenzo Tugnoli), Picnic in a Minefield and Devices for Political Action (with a photo-essay by Leo Novel).Madhuri Sastry, publisher at Guernica Mag, is a writer from India. Her political writing, essays, and cultural criticism have appeared in several publications including The Nation, Slate, Bitch, Catapult and Serious Eats. She holds masters’ degrees in law with a focus on human rights from The London School of Economics and from New York University. She lives in Brooklyn. Find her on Twitter.---http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
Far From the Rooftop of the World: On Tibetan Refugees Across Continents Asian American Writers Workshop 2024-02-20 | Join AAWW, SAJA, Amy Yee, and Jyoti Thottam for a discussion of Yee’s new book “Far From the Rooftop of the World: Travels Among Tibetan Refugees on Four Continents.”In 2008, China’s government cracked down on protests throughout Tibet, and Amy Yee, then a journalist for the Financial Times, found herself covering a press conference with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, his exile home in India. She never imagined a hug from the spiritual leader would spark a global, fourteen-year journey to spotlight the stories of Tibetans in exile. This “beautifully observed” (Peter Hessler, New Yorker writer and MacArthur Fellow) nonfiction narrative and travelogue is set in India – as well as Australia, Belgium and New York. It gives new insight into relationships between Tibetan and Chinese people, especially since Amy is herself Chinese American. This “marvelous book” (Paul A. Cohen, Harvard University) focuses on ordinary but extraordinary Tibetans and stories of people navigating between worlds and multiple identities; and preserving culture even in exile and amid forced migration.Peter Hessler, New Yorker writer, MacArthur Fellow and National Book Award finalist: “Beautifully observed, with full-bodied, engaging characters who are never lost in the shadow of Chinese politics. Amy Yee has done a wonderful job of capturing the details, dramas, and dignities of Tibetan life in exile.”Ha Jin, National Book Award winner: “Amy Yee describes displaced Tibetans intimately and truthfully…Their displacement cannot crush their humanity. Instead, their losses have strengthened them.”Review from the Wilson Center in Washington DC: “Over the course of more than a decade, her interactions and correspondences with her Tibetan contacts blossomed into a non-fiction narrative that is among the first of its kind. Yee’s focus on authentic lived experiences—stories that could only be written with deep and trusted connections—establishes a model for responsible and effective refugee representation.”Amy Yee is an award-winning journalist, most recently with Bloomberg/CityLab and previously a Financial Times correspondent in New York and India where she lived for seven years. She has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Economist, NPR and 30+ media outlets. She won the United Nations Correspondents Association award three times; four awards from South Asian Journalists Association; and first place from Association of Healthcare Journalists for analysis about reducing deaths of children in India and Bangladesh. In 2023 she won the Asian American Journalists Association’s award for political reporting about protecting voting rights of immigrant voters, and a Society of Professional Journalists award for racial equity reporting. Amy has had four Notable Essays in the Best American Essays. She has reported from 20+ countries, including ten in Africa, mostly as a solo freelance journalist. Amy is a MacDowell and Logan Nonfiction Fellow and a graduate of Harvard Kennedy School, Columbia Journalism School, and Wellesley. She has an MFA from Hunter. When she was starting her journalism and writing career, she took several influential classes at the Asian American Writers Workshop.Jyoti Thottam leads the editorial board of The New York Times, which she joined in March 2018 and is the author of “Sisters of Mokama,” published by Viking in 2022. Prior to the Times, she was a reporter, editor and foreign correspondent for Time magazine, where she spent four years as South Asia Bureau Chief; as well as Al Jazeera America and local newspapers in New York and Florida. Her work has appeared in The Believer, the Village Voice and many other publications. She was born in India, grew up in SugarLand, Texas, and graduated from Yale University and Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. She lives with her family in Brooklyn.---http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
In Celebration of Whale Aria & House of Caravans Asian American Writers Workshop 2024-02-20 | In October 2023, AAWW reopened its doors for the first time after three years with a celebration of Rajiv Mohabir’s WHALE ARIA and Shilpi Suneja’s HOUSE OF CARAVANS. It featured a conversation on the post-colonial themes of these works, and a dive into what their stories can teach us about migration and geopolitics. After a period of transformation and renewal, we are excited to invite you to our newly revitalized space, a home for writers, artists, and creators to come together to celebrate the richness of Asian, Asian American, and diasporic storytelling.“Rajiv Mohabir is one of the most brilliant poets writing today. In Whale Aria, he plunges us into the crosscurrents of ecological, documentary, queer, postcolonial, and diasporic poetics. Throughout, Mohabir translates the structure of whale songs into multilingual lyricism and irregular forms. These vocalizations (and invocations) sing across the depth of every page and ping against the shores of our attunement. If you listen deeply to these aquatic songs, you will hear, as whales do, how the ghostly echoes of our more-than-human kin ‘pierce the dark / fathoms’ and reveal ‘the miracle: // what was once lost / now leaps before you.'” —Craig Santos Perez“Tolstoyan in its scope, House of Caravans is a marvel of a novel. It copes with some major issues of our time, such as the mingling of races, colonization, rebellion, historical violence, migrations, and also love and remembrance. Shilpi Suneja writes with patience, subtlety, and intelligence. She is a genuine artist.” —Ha Jin, author of WaitingPoet, memoirist, and translator, Rajiv Mohabir is the author of four books of poetry including Cutlish (Four Way Books 2021) which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and recipient of the Eric Hoffer Medal Provocateur. His poetry and nonfiction have been finalists for the 2022 PEN/America Open Book Award, the Lambda Literary Award in Poetry and in Nonfiction, the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction, and both second place and finalist for the Guyana Prize for Literature in 2022 (poetry and memoir respectively). His translations have won the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the American Academy of Poets in 2020. Whale Aria (Four Way Books 2023) is his fourth collection of poetry and currently he is an assistant professor of poetry at the University of Colorado Boulder.Shilpi Suneja is the author of House of Caravans. Born in India, her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and published in Guernica, McSweeney’s, Cognoscenti, and the Michigan Quarterly Review. Her writing has been supported by a National Endowment for the Arts literature fellowship, a Massachusetts Cultural Council fellowship, and a Grub Street Novel Incubator Scholarship, and she was the Desai fellow at the Jack Jones Literary Arts Retreat. She holds an MA in English from New York University and an MFA in creative writing from Boston University, where she was awarded the Saul Bellow Prize. She lives in Cambridge, MA.---http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
On Girlhood, Craft, and Writing in Community Asian American Writers Workshop 2023-10-09 | This October, join AAWW for a captivating virtual evening as we delve into the intricate tapestry of girlhood, craft, and the power of writing in community. This event brings together three remarkable voices, author of BIG GIRL Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, author of THE WOMAN WHO CLIMBED TREES Smriti Ravindra, and author of the forthcoming THE WAY YOU MAKE ME FEEL: INTERRACIAL LOVE IN BLACK AND BROWN Nina Sharma, to explore the unique intersections of identity, creativity, and the transformative nature of storytelling in their own lives.Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, Ph.D., is the author of the novel Big Girl, a New York Times Editors’ Choice and winner of the 2023 Next Generation Indie Book Award for First Novel. Her previous books are the short story collection, Blue Talk and Love, winner of the 2018 Judith Markowitz Award for LGBTQ Writers and The Poetics of Difference: Queer Feminist Forms in the African Diaspora winner of the William Sanders Scarborough Prize from the Modern Language Association. In her writing, she considers the links between language, imagination, and bodily life in Black queer and feminist experience. Her stories and essays have appeared in Best New Writing, The Kenyon Review, Callaloo, Feminist Studies, American Fiction, Prairie Schooner, Crab Orchard Review, TriQuarterly, GLQ: Lesbian and Gay Studies Quarterly, American Literary History, The Scholar and Feminist, American Quarterly, Public Books, Ebony.com, TheRoot.com, BET.com, and others. A BBC Radio 2 Book Club pick and a New York Times Paperback Row selection, Big Girl was named a best summer books pick by Time, Essence, Vulture, Ms, Glamour UK, Goodreads, Booklist, She Reads, The Root, Library Reads, and others. Her work has earned support and honors from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, Millay Arts, the Institute for Citizens and Scholars, the Mellon Foundation, the Center for Fiction, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Born and raised in Harlem, NY, she is Associate Professor of English at Georgetown University and lives in Washington DC.Smriti Ravindra is a Nepali-Indian writer. She is a Fulbright scholar and holds an MFA in creative writing from North Carolina State University. Her fiction and journalism have been published globally including the US, India, and Nepal. The Woman Who Climbed Trees is her first novel. She currently resides in Mumbai, India.Nina Sharma’s work has appeared in The New Yorker, Electric Literature, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Longreads, and The Margins, among other publications. She received her MFA in writing from Columbia University’s School of the Arts and has been awarded residencies from Vermont Studio Center and St. Nell’s Humor Writing Residency. Nina is formerly the Programs Director at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and with Quincy Scott Jones she co-created Blackshop, a column that thinks about allyship between BIPOC people, featured on Anomaly. A two-time Asian Women Giving Circle grantee for her workshop, “No Name Mind: Stories of Mental Health from Asian America,” she currently teaches at Barnard College and Columbia University. Nina is a proud co-founder of Not Your Biwi Improv. Her debut collection of personal essays, THE WAY YOU MAKE ME FEEL: INTERRACIAL LOVE IN BLACK AND BROWN is forthcoming on Penguin Press.---http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
AAWW and Kay Ulanday Barrett Present A PRIDE Celebration! Asian American Writers Workshop 2023-07-07 | On Thursday, June 22, we hosted a celebratory reading for PRIDE on our virtual stage, featuring our co-presenter Kay Ulanday Barrett, Chrysanthemum Tran, Diamond Forde, and Ryka Aoki!KAY ULANDAY BARRETT is a poet, essayist, cultural strategist, and A+ napper. They are the winner of the 2022 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Cy Twombly Award for Poetry, a winner of the 2022 Next Book Residency with Tin House, and a recipient of a 2020 James Baldwin Fellowship at MacDowell. Their second book, More Than Organs (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2020) received a 2021 Stonewall Honor Book Award by the American Library Association and is a 2021 Lambda Literary Award Finalist. They have featured at The United Nations, The Lincoln Center, The Hemispheric Institute, Symphony Space, The Ford Foundation, Brooklyn Museum, Princeton, Columbia University, Yale, Manchester PRIDE, Sesame Street, & more. Their contributions are found in The New York Times, Poetry Magazine, Colorlines, Literary Hub, The Advocate, Al Jazeera, NYLON, Vogue, The Rumpus, The Lily, and elsewhere. For more info: kaybarrett.netCHRYSANTHEMUM TRAN is a Vietnamese American poet, writer & performance artist. She’s the recipient of a MacColl Johnson Fellowship from the Rhode Island Foundation & an Artist Residency at Williams College. A finalist of the Women of the World Poetry Slam representing her home venue at the Providence Poetry Slam, Chrysanthemum produced & wrote ANTHEM at the American Repertory Theater’s OBERON. Profiled by PBS & WBUR, her writing appears in The Nation, Them, Bettering American Poetry, The Offing, among others. Her work confronts the historical inconsistencies rooted in the clinical & legal vestiges of empire. Outside of poetry, she moonlights as a queer health researcher & community historian.DIAMOND FORDE’S debut collection, Mother Body, is the winner of the 2019 Saturnalia Poetry Prize. Forde has received numerous awards and prizes, including a Pink Poetry Prize, a Furious Flower Poetry Prize, and was a finalist for the 2022 Kate Tufts Discovery Award fromClaremont Graduate University. A Callaloo, Tin House, and Ruth Lilly Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg fellow, Forde’s work has appeared in Poetry, Obsidian, Massachusetts Review, and more. In her spare time, Forde also serves as the interviews editor of Honey Literary and the fiction editor of Nat. Brut.RYKA AOKI (she/her) is a poet, composer, teacher, and novelist. Her latest novel, Light From Uncommon Stars, was an Alex, SCKA, and Otherwise Award winner, and was also a finalist for the Hugo, Locus, and Ignyte Awards.Ryka is a two-time Lambda Literary Award finalist for her collections Seasonal Velocities, and Why Dust Shall Never Settle Upon This Soul, and her first novel, He Mele a Hilo, was called one of the “10 Best Books Set in Hawaii” by Bookriot. She has been recognized by the California State Senate for “extraordinary commitment to the visibility and well-being of Transgender people,” and her work has appeared or been recognized in publications including Vogue, Elle, Bustle, Autostraddle, PopSugar, and Buzzfeed, as well as the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center. She was also honored to work with the American Association of Hiroshima Nagasaki A-Bomb Survivors, where two of her compositions were adopted as the organization’s “songs of peace.”---http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
Interdisciplinary Poetics: Migration, Earth, and Empire Asian American Writers Workshop 2023-07-03 | On Thursday, June 15, we hosted a reading and roundtable on interdisciplinary approaches to migration, earth, empire, and mental health featuring Filipinx poets Angela Peñaredondo, Jan-Henry Gray, Jen Soriano, and Christine Imperial! We witnessed each poet’s work and had a moderated conversation with Kay Ulanday Barrett centering sounds and textures of interdisciplinary writing as well as the intuitive and dissonant outcomes of this interweaving.ANGELA PEÑAREDONDO is a writer, artist, and assistant professor of Creative Writer. Peñaredondo is the author of nature felt but never apprehended (Noemi Press), All Things Lose Thousands of Times (Inlandia Institute, Winner of Hillary Gravendyk Regional Prize) and the chapbook, Maroon (Jamii Publications). Their work has appeared in The Academy of American Poets, Pleiades Magazine, Michigan Quarterly Review, Southern Humanities Review and elsewhere. They received fellowships from Hedgebrook, Kundiman, and Macondo; and awards from TinHouse, Community of Writers and others. They are based in unceded lands of the Tongvan, Serrano and Tataviam nations with their partner and many cramped, wild plants. You can find them at angelapenaredondo.com and @domainedenarwhalCHRISTINE IMPERIAL is a PhD Cultural Studies student at UC Davis where she was awarded the Dean’s Distinguished Graduate Fellowship. Her first book Mistaken for an Empire is published with Mad Creeks Books, an imprint of the Ohio State University, as the 2021 Gournay Prize Winner. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the California Institute of the Arts. At CalArts, she was the 2020 Emi Kuriyama Thesis winner and a 2020-2021 REEF Fellow. Her work has been published in Poets & Writers, POETRY, Inverted Syntax, TLDTD, among others.JEN SORIANO (she~they) is a Filipinx writer and movement builder who has long worked at the intersection of grassroots organizing, narrative strategy, and art-driven social change. Jen has won the International Literary Award for Creative Nonfiction, the Fugue Prose Prize, and fellowships from Hugo House, Vermont Studio Center, Artist Trust, and the Jack Jones Literary Arts Retreat. Jen is also an independent scholar and performer, author of the chapbook “Making the Tongue Dry,” and co-editor of Closer to Liberation: A Pina/xy Activist Anthology. Originally from a landlocked part of the Chicago area, Jen now lives with her family in Seattle, near the Duwamish River and the Salish Sea. Her debut essay collection Nervous, will be published August 22, 2023 by Amistad Books. JAN-HENRY GRAY is the author of Documents (BOA Editions, Ltd.), selected by D.A. Powell as the winner A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize and the chapbook Selected Emails (speCt! Books). He’s received fellowships from Kundiman, Undocupoets, and the Cooke Foundation. He was born in the Philippines and has lived in San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, and Brooklyn. He is an Assistant Professor at Adelphi University in New York.KAY ULANDAY BARRETT is a poet, essayist, cultural strategist, and A+ napper. They are the winner of the 2022 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Cy Twombly Award for Poetry, a winner of the 2022 Next Book Residency with Tin House, and a recipient of a 2020 James Baldwin Fellowship at MacDowell. Their second book, More Than Organs (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2020) received a 2021 Stonewall Honor Book Award by the American Library Association and is a 2021 Lambda Literary Award Finalist. They have featured at The United Nations, The Lincoln Center, The Hemispheric Institute, Symphony Space, The Ford Foundation, Brooklyn Museum, Princeton, Columbia University, Yale, Manchester PRIDE, Sesame Street, & more. Their contributions are found in The New York Times, Poetry Magazine, Colorlines, Literary Hub, The Advocate, Al Jazeera, NYLON, Vogue, The Rumpus, The Lily, and elsewhere. For more info: kaybarrett.netThis event will be streamed on Zoom Webinar. Please RSVP to receive a Zoom link via email in advance of the event. The event will be uploaded to the AAWW YouTube channel at a future date. ---http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
In Celebration: BIANCA Book Launch with Eugenia Leigh and Tarfia Faizullah Asian American Writers Workshop 2023-06-06 | Join us as we celebrate Eugenia Leigh’s latest and universally lauded poetry collection, BIANCA, a book that documents and confronts living in the throes of mental illness, complex trauma, and straddles the emotional spheres that orbit each other. Eugenia will be joined by powerhouse poet Tarfia Faizullah.Eugenia Leigh is a Korean American poet and the author of two poetry collections, Bianca (Four Way Books, 2023) and Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows (Four Way Books, 2014). Poems from Bianca received Poetry magazine’s Bess Hokin Prize and have appeared in numerous publications including The Atlantic, The Nation, Ploughshares, and the Best of the Net anthology. Her essays have appeared in TIME, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. Eugenia received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and serves as a Poetry Editor at The Adroit Journal and as the Valentines Editor at Honey Literary.Tarfia Faizullah is the author of Registers of Illuminated Villages (Graywolf 2018) and Seam (SIU 2014. Her writing appears widely in the US and abroad, is translated into several languages, and is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, three Pushcart Prizes, and other honors. Tarfia lives in Dallas, TX. This event will be captioned and ASL interpretation is provided by Pro Bono ASL. Event Image Description: Atop a curved background of three different shades of pink and a bright yellow curved line is black bold text that reads “IN CELEBRATION OF BIANCA, BOOK LAUNCH WITH EUGENIA LEIGH AND TARFIA FAIZULLAH, MAY 10, 8PM ET ONLINE, ASL AND AUTO CAPTIONING PROVIDED, RSVP AT AAWW.ORG/EVENTS.” To the left hand side of the text is the cover of Bianca which features a human figure with dark straight hair blowing in the wind. The body is covered in small pink pieces of paper that are blowing toward them. There are pink pieces of paper in the air and on the floor. The text reads “Bianca” is thin yellow text with Eugenia Leigh’s name in smaller text below it. At the bottom of the graphic is a white bar with AAWW’s logo in bold black text and Asian American Writers’ Workshop spelled out beside it.---http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
AAWW & A4 Present: Get Shamele$s About Your Art as a Business! Asian American Writers Workshop 2023-06-06 | Join AAWW and Asian American Arts Alliance for a financial wellness workshop for arts workers with certified financial planner Pamela Capalad and educator Brian “Dyalekt” Kushner.Our dreams of being creatives didn’t include having to be our own accountant, bookkeeper, HR, insurance specialist, marketing, merch desk, shipping, and personal assistant too! This workshop will help you set up your writing/freelance work like a business so you can set up systems, stop overthinking, and get out of your own way.No more starving artists. No more overproducing in the hopes one will hit different. No more burnout. Be in control of how your art fits into your budget. Defeat impostor syndrome with spreadsheets. Look at the numbers. You’re probably a small business owner already. Treat yourself like a producer instead of a product and you’ll never have to compromise your art.Pamela Capalad is a Certified Financial Planner™ and Accredited Financial Counselor™ and has been in financial services since 2008. She founded Brunch & Budget to help people who felt ashamed or embarrassed about money have a safe place to make real financial progress. Pam has been featured in the Washington Post, Teen Vogue, Huffington Post, Vice Magazine, and was named New York Magazine’s Best financial planner of New York 2019.Brian “Dyalekt” Kushner has been a hip-hop MC, theater maker, and educator for nearly 20 years. He’s the director of pedagogy at Pockets Change, where he uses hip-hop pedagogy to demystify personal finance and help students take control of their relationship with money. He is the recipients of Jump$tart’s 2022 Innovation in Financial Literacy award. He’s rocked (performed/taught/keynoted) everywhere from conferences like AFCPE and Prosperity Now, to stages like SXSW and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, to classrooms that range from Yale to your cousin’s living room. ---http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
In Celebration of Disorientation: Elaine Hsieh Chou and Sabrina Imbler Asian American Writers Workshop 2023-05-09 | The Asian American Writers’ Workshop presents a virtual event celebrating the paperback launch of Elaine Hsieh Chou’s DISORIENTATION. This debut novel explores a Taiwanese American woman’s coming-of-consciousness as she ignites eye-opening revelations and chaos on a college campus. The hilarious satire is an examination of privilege and power in America, described by Alexander Chee as “wickedly funny and knowing,” where “Chou’s dagger wit is sure-eyed, intent on what feels like a decolonization of her protagonist, if not the reader, that just might set her free.” Elaine will be joined in conversation by author Sabrina Imbler.--http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
In Conversation: V. V. Ganeshananthan and Mira Jacob Asian American Writers Workshop 2023-02-08 | The Asian American Writers’ Workshop presents a virtual book launch event for V. V. Ganeshananthan’s novel, Brotherless Night. A heartbreaking exploration of civil war and its’ impact on a Sri Lankan family, Ganeshananthan presents “an achingly moving portrait of a world full of turmoil, but one in which human connections and shared stories can teach us how—and as importantly, why—to survive.” (Celeste Ng). V. V. will be joined in conversation by author Mira Jacob.V. V. Ganeshananthan is the author of Love Marriage, which was longlisted for the Women’s Prize and named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post. Her work has appeared in Granta, The New York Times, and Best American Nonrequired Reading, among others. A former vice president of the South Asian Journalists Association, she has also served on the board of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. She is a member of the board of directors of the American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies and the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. She teaches in the MFA program at the University of Minnesota and co-hosts the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast on Literary Hub, which is about the intersection of literature and the news.Mira Jacob is a novelist, memoirist, illustrator, and cultural critic. Her graphic memoir Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award, longlisted for the PEN Open Book Award, named a New York Times Notable Book, as well as a best book of the year by Time, Esquire, Publisher’s Weekly, and Library Journal. It is currently in development as a television series.--http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
In Conversation: Deepti Kapoor and Mira Jacob Asian American Writers Workshop 2023-01-04 | For our first event of 2023, we're welcoming authors Deepti Kapoor and Mira Jacob in a deep and riveting conversation on Deepti's new novel, Age of Vice. Hailed by Booker-Prize winning author Marlon James as "epic, crazy, shocking, mind-blowing, brutal, tender, heartbreaking," Age of Vice is a lush and complex crime novel, a layered family saga, drawing inspiration from Kapoor's experience living and working as a journalist in New Delhi.
Fireside Chat: Karen Chee and Jafreen Uddin Asian American Writers Workshop 2022-12-23 | As we close out 2022 and look to the future, we invited writer and comedian Karen Chee to join our Executive Director, Jafreen Uddin, for an informal year-end conversation, as part of our Fireside Chat series. Join them in late December for our last event of the year, as they talk through updates from the Workshop, writing for TV, and much, much more.We’ll see you in 2023, and wish you warmth, community, and happy holidays, however you celebrate!
The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit-Feminist Led Celebration & Discussion Asian American Writers Workshop 2022-12-12 | On December 1, we convened a A Dalit feminist-led celebration and discussion of Thenmozhi Soundararajan’s anticipated new book, The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation on Survivorship, Healing, and Abolition featuring Thenmozhi Soundararajan (the @DalitDiva), John Boopalan, Pabitra Dash, and Mimi Mondal, and moderated by Dhanya Addanki.http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
In Celebration of: The Future is Disabled Asian American Writers Workshop 2022-11-15 | On October 13th, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop celebrates The Future is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes, and Mourning Songs (Arsenal Pulp Press, October 22), Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha’s highly anticipated collection of essays. An expansion of Leah’s prolific book Care Work (Arsenal Pulp, 2018), Leah asks, “What if disability justice and disabled wisdom are crucial to creating a future in which it’s possible to survive fascism, climate change, and pandemics, and to bring about liberation?” Join us for this evening centering disability justice, care and mutual aid, community, and disabled art as a source of radical joy! Leah will be joined in conversation by Cyrée Jarelle Johnson. http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
In Celebration of COCOON: Zhang Yueran, Jeremy Tiang, and Jade Song Asian American Writers Workshop 2022-11-15 | This October, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop will convene a bilingual virtual celebration of Zhang Yueran‘s novel Cocoon, translated by Jeremy Tiang. We’ll be joined by both the author and translator, as well as artist and author Jade Song, for readings from the book in Chinese and English, and a conversation with one of the most exciting writers working in China today.Cocoon, hailed by Publishers Weekly in a starred review as a “remarkable and tragic story of family and community” explores the scars left on the psyche of a generation following China’s Cultural Revolution, through the eyes of two young friends.Please note that this will be a bilingual event, with participants responding in both Chinese and English.http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
AAWW Recess: A Conversation with S.K. Ali Asian American Writers Workshop 2022-10-17 | Welcome to our second installment of AAWW Recess, our new series of programming dedicated to creating a space of whimsy, play, and dreaming at a time when literature, especially for young people, is undergoing a harrowing battle against bans and erasure. Today, we spoke with S.K. Ali, finalist for the American Library Association’s 2018 William C. Morris Award and winner of the APALA Honor Award and Middle East Book Honor Award. Her new novel, “Love from Mecca to Medina” is out tomorrow on October 18. You can find it at bookstores near you, or purchase it here: bookshop.org/p/books/love-from-mecca-to-medina-s-k-ali/18253618?ean=9781665916073http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
AAWW Recess: A Conversation with Neon Yang Asian American Writers Workshop 2022-09-27 | We're thrilled to share the first installment of AAWW Recess, our new series of programming dedicated to creating a space of whimsy, play, and dreaming at a time when literature, especially for young people, is undergoing a harrowing battle against bans and erasure. Today, we spoke with Hugo-, Nebula- and WFA-nominated author Neon Yang, whose novel “The Genesis of Misery” is out TODAY, September 27. You can find it at bookstores near you, or purchase it here: bookshop.org/books/the-genesis-of-misery/9781250788979http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
Martial Law at 50: To Remember Is to Resist Asian American Writers Workshop 2022-09-20 | The Asian American Writers’ Workshop presents readings and performances curated by 2022 Open City Fellow Vina Orden in remembrance of a dark period in the history of the Philippines. 50 years ago, on September 21, 1972, dictator Ferdinand Marcos, Sr., declared martial law over the entire country, ushering a reign of terror where tens of thousands of political opponents, journalists, activists, human rights workers, farmers, and indigenous people were arbitrarily arrested and jailed; and thousands tortured, disappeared, or killed.Nearly four decades after the 1986 People Power Revolution toppled the Marcos dictatorship, the dictator’s son, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos now is president; the vice president is Sara Duterte-Carpio, daughter of recent president Rodrigo Duterte, whose administration is under investigation by the International Criminal Court for extrajudicial killings and other human rights abuses in its “War on Drugs.” And in all that time, there has been a systemic revision of the history of the Marcoses and martial law. This program is presented in solidarity with ML50 observances in the Philippines to counter historical erasure and revisionism. We gather from different regions of the Philippines, from different diasporas, and from different generations to speak and bear witness to each other’s truths. To remember is to resist.We are grateful to the writers, journalists, poets, artists, singer songwriters, and activists who contributed to this program and whose work continues to illuminate and make the truth irresistible: Nerissa Balce, Cinelle Barnes, Joi Barrios, John Bengan, Merlinda Bobis, Elaine Castillo, Rene Ciria-Cruz, Jill Damatac, Carina Evangelista, Luis H. Francia, Eric Gamalinda, Candy Gourlay, Jessica Hagedorn, Luisa A. Igloria, Bonifacio “Boni” P. Ilagan, Karen Llagas, Victor Manibo, Potri Ranka Manis, Carla Montemayor, Augustin “Don” Pagusara, Nonilon Queano, Bino A. Realuyo, Jun Cruz Reyes (translated and read by John Bengan), Albert Samaha, Alfred “Krip” A. Yuson, and Carina Evangelista.http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
Nou Revilla reading The opposite of dispossession is not possession; it is connection Asian American Writers Workshop 2022-08-23 | This poem is excerpted from AAWW's In Conversation: No’u Revilla and Julian Aguon event which took place on August 16, 2022, which you can watch here: youtu.be/PKtyNIrQYcohttp://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
In Conversation: No’u Revilla and Julian Aguon Asian American Writers Workshop 2022-08-23 | This August, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop joins Milkweed Editions in celebrating No’u Revilla‘s debut collection Ask the Brindled, which was selected by poet Rick Barot as a winner of the 2021 National Poetry Series. Praised by Craig Santos Perez as “an astonishing addition to the canon (or canoe) of Pacific Islander literature” this collection reclaims narratives placed upon queer and Indigenous Hawaiians in a “gorgeous unfolding of story and polemic, audacity and song” (Rick Barot).For this virtual celebration, No’u will be joined in conversation and story by Indigenous human rights lawyer and writer Julian Aguon, author of the lyric essay No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies.http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
In Conversation: Jamil Jan Kochai and Karan Mahajan Asian American Writers Workshop 2022-07-21 | This July, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop brings together authors Jamil Jan Kochai and Karan Mahajan to discuss and celebrate Jamil’s debut short story collection, The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories. A luminous exploration of the Afghan diaspora and modern-day Afghanistan, these stories trace the wounds left by war and displacement in a “master class in storytelling” (Kirkus Reviews).http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
Mouth to Mouth: Queer Liberation 2022! Asian American Writers Workshop 2022-07-19 | Come celebrate Queer Liberation with Mouth to Mouth, hosted and curated by Kay Ulanday Barrett and Jimena Lucero! This month we’re featuring powerhouse writers Ariana Brown, aureleo sans, Kirin Khan, and Michal “MJ” Jones. Come celebrate their work with us!http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
In Conversation: Louisa Lim Gina Chua Asian American Writers Workshop 2022-07-08 | Award-winning journalist and devoted Hong Konger Louisa Lim will join the Asian American Writers’ Workshop for a virtual event celebrating the publication of her newest title, Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong. Indelible City is both a battle cry and a love letter to a complex place at a crossroads in its history – taking the 2019 protests as a starting point – and Lim captures the energy of Hong Kong in the way only a longtime resident can. Louisa Lim will be joined in conversation by Gina Chua, most recently executive editor of the Reuters news agency, and one of the most senior transgender journalists in the country.http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
In Conversation: Lisa Hsiao Chen & Anelise Chen Asian American Writers Workshop 2022-06-24 | Last April, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop convened writers Lisa Hsiao Chen and Anelise Chen in conversation to celebrate the publication of Lisa’s debut novel, Activities of Daily Living. A deeply moving novel exploring the connections between working and living, this is a “beguiling and brilliant meditation on what it means to live and die” (Viet Thanh Nguyen). ASL interpretation provided by Pro Bono ASL.http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
AAWW at 30: Activating the Archive Asian American Writers Workshop 2022-06-23 | In commemoration of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop’s 30th anniversary, AAWW at 30 will explore the values and ideas that lie at the heart of the Workshop’s mission. From the complexities of representation to the need for an artistic home to interrogating our editorial and archival legacies, this series of events will serve not only as a retrospective of our rich and layered history, but also as a resounding call to envision our future.http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
In Conversation: Joseph Han & Crystal Hana Kim Asian American Writers Workshop 2022-06-22 | Asian American Writers’ Workshop presents a virtual book launch event for Joseph Han’s debut novel, Nuclear Family. An occasionally hilarious, and deeply moving story about family and history, this is a “moving exploration of the losses we inherit, the continual violence of borders, and the embodiedness of history” (K-Ming Chang). Joseph will be joined in conversation by author Crystal Hana Kim, a fellow novelist and 2022 5 Under 35 honoree. ASL provided by our friends at Pro Bono ASL.http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
MORE THAN ORGANS: A Queer Asian Celebration Asian American Writers Workshop 2022-06-22 | Join us as we celebrate another year of More Than Organs, Kay Ulanday Barrett’s award-winning second poetry collection, released in 2020! More Than Organs is “a love letter to Brown, Queer, and Trans futures… MORE THAN ORGANS questions ‘whatever wholeness means’ for bodies always in transit, for the safeties and dangers they silo. These poems remix people of color as earthbenders…” (Sibling Rivalry Press)Hosted by Kay Ulanday Barrett and Jimena Lucero, this showcase also features Chrysanthemum Tran, Rajiv Mohabir, and Wo Chan!This event was captioned with ASL Interpretation by our friends at Pro Bono ASL.http://aaww.orghttp://twitter.com/aawwhttp://instagram.com/aaww_nychttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshopFounded in 1991, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.
Bora Chung and Anton Hur read from Cursed Bunny Asian American Writers Workshop 2022-05-23 | The Asian American Writers' Workshop celebrates books by Asian authors long listed for the 2022 Booker International Prize. Here, author Bora Chung and translator Anton Hur read from Cursed Bunny.
Norman Erikson Pasaribu and Tiffany Tsao read from Happy Stories, Mostly Asian American Writers Workshop 2022-05-23 | The Asian American Writers' Workshop celebrates books by Asian authors long listed for the 2022 Booker International Prize. Here, author Norman Erikson Pasaribu and translator Tiffany Tsao read from Happy Stories, Mostly.
Sang Young Park and Anton Hur read from Love in the Big City Asian American Writers Workshop 2022-05-23 | The Asian American Writers' Workshop celebrates books by Asian authors long listed for the 2022 Booker International Prize. Here, author Sang Young Park and translator Anton Hur read from Love in the Big City.
Geetanjali Shree and Daisy Rockwell read from Tomb of Sand Asian American Writers Workshop 2022-05-23 | The Asian American Writers' Workshop celebrates books by Asian authors long listed for the 2022 Booker International Prize. Here, author Geetanjali Shree and translator Daisy Rockwell read from Tomb of Sand.
Our Existence is a Rebellion Asian American Writers Workshop 2022-05-19 | The Asian American Writers' Workshop, in collaboration with Sham-e-Ali Nayeem, presents a special reading event to spread awareness about the terrifying and dangerous situation unfolding in India with the threat of fascism endangering the lives of many caste oppressed people, indigenous communities, and those from marginalized religions in India. We are hoping to hold space for our community and also spread awareness about the genocide of Indian Muslims that is unfolding. We believe it will be a powerful act of resilience to ask ourselves: what role do writers and poets play in helping us find our way in a time of genocide? With poetry as our balm, we hope to resoundingly stand in solidarity with Muslims, Dalits, Christians, Sikhs, Adivasis and other marginalized communities in India impacted by state sanctioned violence. Curated by Sham-e-Ali Nayeem, this reading will feature readings from: Sham-e-Ali Nayeem, Sanam Sheriff, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Yashica Dutt, Hala Alyan, Kazim Ali, Adeeba Shahid Talukder, Bao Phi, Rajiv Mohabir, Seema Reza, Mahogany L. Browne, Sahar Romani, Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay, Tina Zafreen Alam, Shadab Zeest Hashmi, Taiyo Na, Divya Victor, Cynthia Dewi Oka, Hawa Amin-Arsala, Tara Betts, Zeyn Joukhadar, Fariha Róisín, Faisal Mohyuddin, Dilruba Ahmed, Tanaïs, Zeina Hashem Beck, Yalini Dream, Husnaa Hashim, Arshia Haq, Ladan Osman, Tarfia Faizullah, Walidah Imarisha, Turiya Autry, Thenmozhi Soundarajan, and Sonny Singh.
Stories of the Future: Diasporic Literary Community on Campus Asian American Writers Workshop 2022-05-17 | This May, in collaboration with Barnard College’s arts and literary magazine Echoes, we are gathering a panel of academic and student leaders to discuss the role of diasporic on-campus literary communities in mobilizing and giving form — but never definition — to the elusive notion of “Asian America.” Drawing from the perspectives of Amy Zhang and Ruchi Shah (co-Editors-in-Chief of Echoes), Jerrica Li (Founder of Harvard’s The Wave), Silayan Camson (Editor-in-Chief of UC Berkeley’s {m}aganda), and Hua Hsu (New Yorker staff writer and professor of English at Vassar), this conversation will explore the unique opportunities and challenges of celebrating multiplicity, building solidarity, and uplifting Asian diasporic stories in the academic setting. This even will be moderated by Jyothi Natarajan, Editor-in-Chief of The Margins, and introduced by Meg Young, events coordinator at Echoes magazine.The title of this event is drawn from the following quote from Grace Lee Boggs’ book The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century: “Every crisis, actual or impending, needs to be viewed as an opportunity to bring about profound changes in our society. Going beyond protest organizing, visionary organizing begins by creating images and stories of the future that help us imagine and create alternatives to the existing system.”
In Conversation: Lan Samantha Chang and Sarah Thankam Mathews Asian American Writers Workshop 2022-05-09 | Lan Samantha Chang, director of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop spoke with former AAWW Margins Fellow and debut novelist Sarah Thankam Mathews to celebrate her new novel, The Family Chao, a literary mystery centered on a Chinese-American family set in a small town in Wisconsin.This event is presented in partnership with the Strand Book Store.
In Conversation: Sequoia Nagamatsu and Kim Fu Asian American Writers Workshop 2022-05-09 | Earlier this year, we celebrated two highly anticipated February 2022 releases: Sequoia Nagamatsu’s How High We Go in the Dark and Kim Fu’s Lesser Known Monsters of the Twentieth Century. Nagamatsu and Fu will join the Asian American Writers’ Workshop to discuss the ways their work blurs the boundary between the real and the fantastic to uncover new ways of understanding modern life. Writer, editor, and 2022 Margins Fellow Katie Yee moderated this conversation.
In Conversation: Mai Al-Nakib and Noor Naga Asian American Writers Workshop 2022-04-12 | This April, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop is joined by authors Mai Al-Nakib and Noor Naga, who will read from their forthcoming books An Unlasting Home and If An Egyptian Cannot Speak English. Meditating on literature by and for Arab women, they’ll be joined in conversation by former AAWW Fellow and poet Ghinwa Jawhari, for a vital conversation with these searing voices and stories from Kuwait and Cairo.http://aaww.orghttp://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshophttp://twitter.com/aawwAAWW is a national not-for-profit arts organization devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans–in other words, we’re the preeminent organization dedicated to amplifying Asian diasporic stories.We’re building the Asian literary culture of tomorrow through our curatorial platform, which includes our New York events series and our online editorial initiatives. In a time when China and India are on the rise, when immigration is a vital electoral issue, when the detention of Muslim Americans is a matter of common practice, we believe Asian American literature is vital to interpret our post-multicultural but not post-racial age. Our curatorial take is intellectual and alternative, pop cultural and highbrow, warm and artistically innovative, and vested in New York City communities.Our curatorial platform is premised on the idea of a big-tent Asian American cultural pluralism. We’re interested in both the New York publishing industry and ethnic studies, the South Asian diasporic novel and the Asian American story of assimilation, high culture and pop culture, Lisa Lowe and Amar Chitra Katha, avant-garde poetry and spoken word, journalism and critical race theory, Midnight’s Children and Dictee. We are against both an exclusive literary culture that believes that race does not exist and Asian American narratives that lead to self-stereotyping and limit the menu of our identity. We are for inventing the future of Asian American literary culture. Named one of the top five Asian American groups nationally, covered by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and Poets & Writers, we are a safe community space and an anti-racist counterculture, incubating new ideas and interpretations of what it means to be both an American and a global citizen.
