What we do.

When the Asian American Writers' Workshop held its first annual literary festival in 2009, a mother came up to us, tugging her fourteen-year-old daughter by the hand. "My daughter is a writer," she said. They'd driven for hours so she could listen to Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jhumpa Lahiri read from her work. And now she wanted to thank us. Her daughter found the day inspiring. While being a writer had always been her dream, now it seemed like one she could achieve. We've all been there. At some point in your life, you stood in the shoes of this young girl. You've been a lover of books, looking to discover who you were in the stories you read and the sentences you wrote. Maybe, like her mother, you too believe that the dreams of a young writer deserve to be realized.

At the Workshop, we're the preeminent literary arts organization dedicated to excellent Asian American writing—but you could also say we're in the business of fulfilling dreams—including those of Jhumpa Lahiri, who was herself once a young writer with a dream. "I think by the time I was in my early twenties, I wanted to write fiction but I was too afraid. I never really thought that my writing would go anywhere, but it had become important to me enough to keep it as a side pursuit," she told the audience at our literary festival. "I felt that The Asian American Writers' Workshop was a secret door that opened and cared about and supported my work as a writer. I remember the thrill of seeing my book on display at the Workshop and I remember also reading there very early on. It was such an important moment in my life as a writer to be there."

At the Workshop, we want to nurture all Asian American writers, whether they're Jhumpa Lahiri or a struggling young daughter who showed up at our festival with her mother. We're creating a 21st century arts space that can interpret the great tradition of American letters and world literature, broker the space between immigrant communities and the cultural mainstream, and translate the vibrant economies and cultures comprising more than half the world. We want you to make a financial contribution that shows that you believe in investing in the future of America—because we believe that every American, no matter the color of their skin, should understand how Asian America forms a central chapter of the American story.

Why you matter.

If you're like most Asian Americans, you grew up in an immigrant family. Your mother and father struggled to make ends meet. They raised you. They relied on you for English. Maybe you were a reader, but it never occurred to you that you should be able to recognize them and yourself in the movies you watch and the novels you read. Maybe you thought you could become a writer and tell that story. You thought that studying in school and working hard on your manuscript were enough to get you published, but you didn't realize that writing is the easy part of being a writer.

• Did you know that less than 1% of 1% of novels published each year are written by Asian Americans? The reason why is because—as Ayesha Pande, an agent with twenty years experience as both agent and editor, states—most publishers informally restrict publishing no more than one or two writers of color a year.
• Did you know that than only 5% of the reviewers and the authors reviewed in The New York Times Book Review and C-SPAN's After Words are writers of color?
• You could turn to local arts groups for support, but these organizations get their financial support and programmatic priorities from foundations, grantmakers and large donors. Did you know that three-fourths of the top 100 foundations have zero Asian Americans board members? In fact, none of the top 100 foundations employ an Asian American executive director, president, or CEO.
• Did you know that less than half of 1% of philanthropic dollars goes to Asian Americans—even though Asian Americans comprise one in 20 Americans and more than one in ten New Yorkers? Those that do fund Asian American groups almost entirely focus on direct service organizations. Almost no philanthropic dollars are invested in the infrastructure of Asian American arts.

Our culture is losing the majority of the stories and ideas of the fastest growing ethnic group in America—Asian Americans. Here's where you come in. Where foundations and publishing houses have failed, you can step in and make an investment that says that, like us, you believe that the Asian American story deserves to be told.

Make an impact in what culture will look like tomorrow.

If you're like us, then at one point in your life you've been asked, "Where are you from?" You are expected to answer "Delhi" or "Beijing" or "Manila" or some other city halfway around the world. And when you say, "New Jersey" or "the Bay Area" or "Los Angeles," you're asked the question again. "No," they say. "Where are you really from?" We believe you belong. And we want to tell every American the story of where you're from and teach them that the story of the Asian diaspora—a story that stretches across centuries and waters and is being continually rewritten—is not a story of foreigners and aliens, but a narrative that all of us can recognize as familiar, edifying, and our own.

• We curate the best writers in the world. In the last few years, our writers have been awarded or nominated for the Nobel, Pulitzer, the National Book Award, the MacArthur Genius Grant, and the Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as the highest literary awards in India, Bangladesh, and Korea. We've been honored to host Michael Ondaatje, Maxine Hong Kingston, Ha Jin, Jessica Hagedorn, Bei Dao, David Henry Hwang, Li-Young Lee, Ishle Park, Susan Choi, Ed Park, Hari Kunzru, Suketu Mehta, Amitav Ghosh, Mohsin Hamid, Yiyun Li, Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum, and Anchee Min, as well as excellent non-Asian American writers, such as Junot Diaz, Louise Gluck, Ben Marcus, Charles Bernstein, and Sapphire.
• We're incubating the writers of tomorrow. In 2010 alone, we presented more than 39 unpublished writers and more than 31 debut novelists and poets. Nearly all of the recipients for our Van Lier Fellowship for emerging writers went on to publish a book. The list of fellows reads like a who's who of young Asian American writers: Monique Truong, Bino Realuyo, Cathy Park Hong, Monica Ferrell, YoungSoo Park, and Tina Chang, who recently became the Poet Laureate of Queens. In fact, three Workshop alumnus have honored as borough poet laureates.
• We're a highly effective investment. In 2009, we hosted more than 155 writers over 78 events. That's twice the average of four of the most prominent literary arts nonprofits in New York—even though they possessed eight times our staff and five times our budget.*
• We're a dynamic organization in need. Even though we've tripled our event calendar, until January 2010, the Workshop was only one full-time employee. While our new space has a tin roof and luminous bamboo floor, we're still running the Workshop on one working computer and one battered, decade-old phone. Most of our work is actually done on personal computers.

We are doing something no one else is doing: building a shelter for the Asian American stories of our fathers and mothers and inventing the Asian American cultural vision of tomorrow. We are creating the future of the diasporic life of the mind. And we believe Asian American identity elucidates our most pressing issues: China, India, and transnational capital; our wars in West Asia; the detention of Muslim/South Asian Americans; race relations beyond a black-white dichotomy; and the role of immigrants, of which Asian Americans are the fastest growing sector. Asian American literature presents us with model selves for our post-multicultural but not post-racial age, showing us characters who can hear multiple melodies in the song of their own identities—someone like our President, who can trace his past through Hawaii, Indonesia, Chicago. We want to tell this story not just through policymakers, historians, and politicians, but through novels, intellectual discourse, and poems. We believe that literature can build a shelter for the immigrant's tale, for the young adventurer who left behind another home an ocean away, broke and not knowing a soul. Maybe this was your mother's story or your father's story. And we want to tell your story, so your children will be able to read how your experiences are rewriting the Asian American narrative. But we can't do it without your help. Please make a contribution today.

*Budget figures based on average annuals expenses presented in tax filings of The Academy of American Poets, The National Book Foundation, and Pen America for 2009 and Poet's House for 2006 (2007-2009 tax returns unavailable). Event tallies based on average 2009 event totals for The Academy of American Poets, The National Book Foundation, Pen America, and Poets House. Figures are approximate.

Join the club. Invest in the future of Asian American culture.

Hey there, friend—yes, you!—we want you in our club. We're calling for readers and writers of all races, backgrounds, and shoe sizes to invest in the best of Asian American arts. Your investment will help us incubate emerging writers and present the best in world literature. You'll also help us build systems. In 2010 alone, contributions from individuals like you helped us upgrade to the newest version of Quickbooks, create accounts for Google Checkout and Kickstarter, and build a new member tracking system. You're not just buying us a fish. You're teaching us how to use a fishing pole.

You can also send us a housewarming gift via our registry where you can treat us to anything from pencils to bookshelves. (Buy an item soon and we'll name it after you. Just imagine: The [Your name here] Commemorative Stapler!)

Dance Club
$45 One-Year General Membership ($25 Student)
At less than four bucks a month, you'll make an investment in the future of Asian American culture.
What you're investing in: Books for an author event, making sure the writers' work goes into the hands that want it.
What you get: Special membership photo-card.

• A whopping 25% off select books for sale at events. That's better than Borders Rewards!
• Discount on writing workshops. Take two workshops and the membership pays itself.
• You get into regular events for free. You'll get make back your membership just by dropping by once a month.
• Get your friend $5 off at an event.
• The right to vote for the Members' Choice Workshop Award presented at The Asian American Literary Awards Ceremony.
• Special opportunities, notifications and fellowships open only to Members

Chess Club
$100 One-Year Sustaining Membership
What you're investing in: Honorarium for a struggling poet.
What you get: All of the above!

• Commemorative photo from PAGE TURNER 2010.
• A letterpress bookmark hand-made by artists Carolyn Li-Madeo and Meghan Harrington.
• Option to make a limited number of "shout-outs" about your work via our email list, Facebook and Twitter accounts.
• Free admission for yourself and a guest to all in house events.

Greeks
$250 One-Year Special Membership
What you're investing in: Travel stipend to fly in a writer from out of town.
What you get: All of the above!

• Rare back issue of APAJ
• Personalized book plate will commemorate you on a volume in our reading room

Secret Society
$500 One-Year Patron-level Membership
What you're investing in: An college-student intern who can help us be as effective as possible without a large personnel budget while gaining valuable experience in the literary industry. Consider former AAWW intern Cathy Park Hong, who went on to publish two books of poetry and win the Barnard Poetry Prize.
What you get: All of the above!

• Personalized poem from published writer.
• Personalized invitations to special events.
• A limited-edition, made-for-Workshop-members zine by one of our notable authors.
• Special invitation to a cocktail reception with the board.

The Supreme Court of the United States of America
$1,000 One-Year Benefactor-level Membership
What you're investing in: Space rental costs for our signature cocktail reception readings that have featured writers like Ha Jin and Michael Ondaatje.
What you get: All of the above!

• Lunch with a well-known author.
• Commemorative writer's desk in our WRITER GYM.

Mount Olympus
$5,000 One-Year Conservator-level Membership
What you're investing in: Almost one-month's rent for our performance space which has featured some of the best writers in American letters.
What you get: All of the above!

• We'll name an event after you.
• We can cater a literary-themed soiree at your house or company.

What Writers Say

"I bow in gratitude to the Asian American Writers' Workshop for its invaluable service to the making of our literature and culture."
—Maxine Hong Kingston, author of The Woman Warrior, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, National Book Award, and National Humanities Medal.

"I think of the Workshop as a sanctuary for young writers, a place where generations touch and cross and learn from each other, where the full complicated glory of Asian American creativity can blossom. It is a cultural treasure hidden away on a high floor in a crowded city street. New York would be poorer without it."
—Meena Alexander, 2008 Guggenheim Poetry Fellow.

"As we know, the situation for literature seems rather dire these days, and any kind of organization that unites writers and helps promote literature—both the writing and reading—is crucial, even essential, to the life of the literary form. The Workshop happens to be particularly good at this. It's an organization that is full of enthusiasm and energy for its mission. Literature in New York City and the USA as a whole are richer for it."
—Rick Moody, author of Garden State and The Ice Storm.

"The Asian American Writers' Workshop nurtured and raised me. A home away from home, a nest a gathering place, a refuge, a resource... My soul has been so moved and inspired by the quietly incredible writers, activists, and artists who have graced this space. We are blessed to bear witness to its everyday magic. Word."
—Ishle Yi Park, Former Poet Laureate of Queens.

"The Workshop is a vibrant, creative space buzzing with youthful energy and can-do spirit. It's all about the writing of books and the love of books."
—Jessica Hagedorn, author of Dogeaters.

What We Do

We're the 21st century arts space that's working to create the future of Asian American letters. We've brought you to Chelsea galleries, the Laugh Lounge and PowerHouse Books. We run the annual Hyphen short story contest and curated the first ever Asian American ComiCon. Here's what we're up to:

Literary readings you will remember. We've one of the most active literary spaces in New York and have featured some of the finest writers in the country, as well as writers just starting out and looking for a quirky yet curated community arts space of their own. As University of California at Berkeley Professor Elaine Kim states, "The Asian American Writers' Workshop is vital to Asian American studies programs around the country and beyond. The Workshop has showcased and promoted an entire generation of important Asian American artists."

Neighborhood Word. Our literary caravan brings literature directly to the outer boroughs, to show Asian Americans who aren't connected to the literary scene that the story of their lives are worth telling. Our collaborators include City Councilman Daniel Dromm, the Queens Council for the Arts, Nodutdol, Woodside Library, and Jackson Diner, where we fed more than 100 readers and writers with samosas.

Open City. What happens when a Lower East Side hipster hangs out with a Chinatown grandma? Open City, our literary gentrification blog, sends writers to three marginalized neighborhoods in New York to take down the story of urban change the way it's lived in Asian American New York now.

Wordstrike. Our boycott of Arizona anti-immigrant law SB1070 with signatories like Salman Rushdie, Naomi Klein, Francine Prose, John Waters, Noam Chomsky, and 300 other writers.

Mouth to Mouth Open Mic. Curated by novelist Ed Lin and stand-up comedian Mouth-to-Mouth Jen Kwok, our open mic is the only one of its kind: it presents literary writers on the same stage as stand-up comedians and ukulele players.

Writer Gym. We'll rent desks to emerging writers so, as Virginia Woolf suggested, they can have a room of their own.

PAGE TURNER: The Asian American Literary Festival. Our book bash is like your ideal boyfriend or girlfriend: that hot unabashedly lefty braniac with an awesome sense of humor and a great heart. Open to readers of all backgrounds, PAGE TURNER is the only event of its kind—a multi-day celebration of the best minds in Asian American arts and politics

Top 30 Reasons to Support the Workshop!

1. We're the place to go when your mother tells you you're wasting your life with this writing thing.
2. The United Asian American Organizations named us one of the top five Asian American groups in the country.
3. We helped curate the first Asian American ComiCon where we held a panel on the politics and aesthetics of nerds. You know, your people?
4. We're fun. We curated the book party for Monique Truong's new novel about synaesthesia and handed out miracleberries, the fruit that rewires your taste buds.
5. The mother of a Workshop youth program student writes: "After a turbulent year of racism and bullying in his own school, [my son] was delighted to discover a supportive circle of peers at the Workshop. 'I never knew there was a place like this,' he marveled to me after the first day. 'I felt like I belonged on the spot.'"
6. You think literature should connect to real life. You like that we've done programs on transnational adoption, desi teens in Silicon Valley, Jose Rizal, Bollywood-influenced weddings, the formation of the Chinese American middle class, political reform in China, Burma and Bangladesh, and the Cultural Revolution.
7. Not only are we one of the most active Asian American and literary spaces in New York, we're also most most stylistically diverse. We've featured Fatima Bhutto, enfant terrible Tao Lin, avant-pop electronica duo Matmos, Law & Order's B.D. Wong, LOLCats entrepreneur Ben Huh, Pulitzer-winning poet Louise Gluck, Slate music writer Hua Hsu, Watchmen writer Alex Tse, G.I. Joe creator Larry Hama, crime novelist Henry Chang, journalist Jennifer 8. Lee, saxophonist-activist Fred Ho, hip hop activist Jeff Chang, architect Billie Tsien, Crimean Tatar absurdist rocker Cihan Kaan, legal blogger David Lat, and Pakistani punk band The Kominas.
8. You got free beer, ice cream, and a mix CD at our MIX TAPE READING featuring seven writers writing about their favorite songs.
9. We've been doing all this on personal computers!
10. Your dollars make sure we are around the next Thursday night you decide to need to hear some poems, drink some booze, lament and celebrate.
11. National Book Foundation Executive Director Harold Augenbraum says that we help many Asian Americans satiate "a hunger they never knew they had: a hunger for literature, cultural recognition, and a connection to their heritage."
12. It takes money to house the nation's only Asian American Reading Room.
13. We're one of the only Asian American arts groups listed in Gary Okihiro's outline of Asian American history.
14. We'll never ask you, "Where are you from?"
15. We're a cheap date. Our admission price is lower than most NYC burgers.
16. You can be any kind of writer and any kind of Asian American. We're also a home for people who don't like multi-generational coming-of-age memoirs influenced by Amy Tan.
17. You came to our poetry reading by Stegner Fellow and professional dancer Mong-Lan, who taught the audience how to tango dance after the reading.
18. What if your mom or dad thought their story was worth telling?
19. Your money can publish someone for the first time.
20. Escape the black-white racial dichotomy! We think Asian American literature is for everyone, whether you're Asian American or not. Spend a year with us and you can hear stories from more than fifteen ethnicities, from black and white all the way to Crimean Tatar, Persian and Bangladeshi.
21. We're a good investment. We're turning twenty in 2010.
22. College student Tracy Wong told us she didn't remember any of the classes she took at high school, but did remember our graphic novel workshop for young girls.
23. Without our reading series, where would over sixty writers get their start a year?
24. We want to make you laugh. Novelist Ed Lin and stand-up comedian Jen Kwok curate MOUTH TO MOUTH, an open mic unlike any in the country. It features literary writers alongside stand-up comedians and ukulele players.
25. Give more than a grand and get lunch with a writer. The authors we have hosted in the past include some of the finest writers in America: Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri, Tony Award winner David Henry Hwang, Booker Prize winner Michael Ondaatje, National Book Award winner Maxine Hong Kingston, and Nobel Prize nominee Bei Dao.
26. You may be the only person of color at your work meeting, but you aren't at our readings.
27. Our youth programs have won awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Union Square Awards, and Coalition of Asian American Children and Families.
28. We're actually run by Asian American writers—in fact, our Executive Director is the first Chinese American male to win the oldest literary prize in Ameria.
29. We do more avant-garde and progressive programming than most art spaces in America. If you've come to our events, you've met political historian Mae Ngai, surveillance artist Jill Magid, third world historian Vijay Prashad, seminal political artist Martha Rosler, and two generations of avant-garde writers: John Yau, Linh Dinh, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Tan Lin, Tan Lin, Myung Mi Kim and others.
30. You can throw your own party at our awesome Chelsea space!