In collaboration with the Asian American Writers Workshop and Kundiman, Kaya Press brings acclaimed novelist Ed Lin together with pioneering YA author and co-founder of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop Marie Myung-Ok Lee (FINDING MY VOICE (Soho Teen, 2021 re-release) in conversation to celebrate the release of Ed Lin’s YA debut, DAVID TUNG CAN’T HAVE A GIRLFRIEND UNTIL HE GETS INTO AN IVY LEAGUE COLLEGE (Kaya Press, October 2020). Moderated by Ruth Minah Buchwald, Ed Lin and Marie Lee’s dialogue will orbit themes, such as: Asian American study culture; the pitfalls of the “model minority” myth and how to challenge it; multiple standards and (mis)representations of Asian Americans in literature and the media; and coming-of-age in the Asian American diaspora while navigating relationships through race, class, young love, not to mention the confusing expectations of immigrant parental pressure.  

THIS IS AN OFFICIAL 2020 BROOKLYN BOOK FESTIVAL EVENT.

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Ed Lin, a native New Yorker of Taiwanese and Chinese descent, is the first author to win three Asian American Literary Awards and is an all-around standup kinda guy. His books include Waylaid, published by Kaya in 2002, a mystery trilogy set in New York’s Chinatown in the 1970s (This Is a Bust, Snakes Can’t Run, and One Red Bastard), and a mystery series set in Taipei (Ghost Month, Incensed, and 99 Ways to Die). Lin lives in Brooklyn with his wife, actress Cindy Cheung, and son.

Marie Myung-Ok Lee is the author of two other YA novels: Necessary Roughness and Saying Goodbye, the sequel to Finding my Voice, as well as the middle grade novels If It Hadn’t Been for Yoon Jun and Night of the Chupacabras. Her books have won a number of awards, including Friends of American Writers, New York Public Library’s Best Books for the Teen Age, and NCTE’s Children’s Choice. She has been a judge for the National Book Awards, a Fulbright Fellow, and was one of the first Korean American journalists allowed into North Korea.

Ruth Minah Buchwald is a Fiction Manuscript Reader for Okay Donkey Press and on the editorial team of SPICY, an online zine and creative collective led by women of color, and queer and trans people of color. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Electric Literature, The Margins, and TAYO. Born in Seoul, South Korea and raised in northern New Jersey, she received a BA in Critical and Visual Studies from Pratt Institute and lives in Brooklyn. Say hi @ruthbuchwald.