Past Events

Join us for a reading with two of this spring’s most exciting literary fiction debuts that explore the metaphysics of identity, mental health, and migration. Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater (Grove, 2018), named a Most Anticipated Book of 2018 in Esquire, the Huffington Post, and more, follows the story of a young...

Come for a special event about Filipinx-American history, migration, queerness, and the elusive goal of cracking the American Dream for working-class immigrants. Elaine Castillo’s debut America is Not the Heart is a vibrant and starkly hilarious novel told through the perspective of different members of the De Vera family, who...

Come for a special reading on folklore, the Iranian revolution, and people whose dreams were lost to history. “One of Iran's greatest novelists” (Guardian), Shahriar Mandanipour reads from Moon Brow, the story of a playboy-turned-soldier shell shocked from the Iran-Iraq War who sees visions of angels from the past. Jasmin...

Join Négar Djavadi and AAWW Open City Fellow Roja Heydarpour as they discuss Djavadi’s debut novel, Disoriental, which won several prestigious literary awards in France, on the occasion of its publication in the US with Europa Editions. In this high-spirited, kaleidoscopic story, key moments of Iranian history, politics, and culture...

Come prepared to hear four poets of color mix and remix translation, through love letters, laws, binary code, and Google translate. Bay Area-based Filipina poet Janice Lobo Sapigao will share music and visuals alongside her salvaged family love letters written in Ilocano and a poetic critique of the Silicon Valley,...

Six sessions, April 14-May 19, 2018 Saturdays from 4:00-7:00pm Fees & Payment Options: Free Application Deadline: Thursday, March 15 2018 at midnight.  APPLY HERE Why You Should Take This Class: As psychic lives of Asian American women are yet to be rendered in their full complexities, "No Name Mind" offers a...

Mic Check! Are you a writer? Come share your work at our next edition of our open mic, Mouth to Mouth. Hosted by AAWW Fam poets Sonia Guiñansaca and Kay Ulanday Barrett, this edition of Mouth to Mouth features Kenning JP García and Jasmine Reid. Mouth to Mouth seeks to provide...

Belladonna* Collaborative, Brooklyn Public Library and Asian American Writer's Workshop are proud to co-present Abdellah Taïa in conversation with poet and scholar Meena Alexander. Additional sponsorship has been generously provided by Seven Stories Press. RSVP HERE OPEN TO THE PUBLIC In 1973, Abdellah Taïa was born in the public library...

Join us for a special event about how has Iraq changed post American invasion and how the war on terror has been "brought home" through an expanded security state. We are featuring journalist Erin Banco, who wrote the recently released Pipe Dreams, Nisha Kapoor, the author of Deport, Deprive, Extradite,...

Join us for a special reading about migration and reconfiguring literal and imagined borderlands with writers Vi Khi Nao, Brandon Shimoda and Celina Su. Celina Su’s debut collection of poetry, Landia, is a series of border crossings and questioning the social contract of the state and citizenship. Brandon Shimoda will...

Three experimental writers of color investigate the vision of the city through books that merge visual art with poetry and prose. Sesshu Foster’s eagerly anticipated City of the Future rebels against the gentrification of Chicano/Asian East LA through poems, letters, drawings, and postcards: Douglas Kearney calls it “elegiac, documentarian, furious...

In this collection, published in collaboration with the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, writers imagine “home” in the twenty-first century through an array of fiction, memoir, and poetry. Both urgent and meditative, this anthology moves beyond the model-minority myth and showcases the singular intimacies of individuals figuring out what it means...

Why you should take this class: What is “fiction as activism”? All writing is an act of activism if it is an honest effort to engage with or comment on or generally make sense of the world. “Activism” doesn’t have to mean militant or angry, either. It can be funny, absurdist,...

In this collection, published in collaboration with the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and The Feminist Press, writers imagine “home” in the twenty-first century through an array of fiction, memoir, and poetry. Both urgent and meditative, this anthology moves beyond the model-minority myth and showcases the singular intimacies of individuals figuring...

Mic Check! Are you a writer? Come share your work at our next edition of our open mic, Mouth to Mouth. Hosted by AAWW Fam poets Sonia Guiñansaca and Kay Ulanday Barrett, this edition of Mouth to Mouth features Eddie Maisonet and Santiago J. Sanchez. Mouth to Mouth seeks to...

In the collection, Go Home!, published in collaboration with the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and The Feminist Press, writers imagine “home” in the twenty-first century through an array of fiction, memoir, and poetry. Both urgent and meditative, this anthology moves beyond the model-minority myth and showcases the singular intimacies of individuals...

Note: This program takes place at Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn. The Go Home! Launch event at AAWW is March 12. Join us for the Greenlight Bookstore launch of Go Home!, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop collection published in collaboration with the Feminist Press that images “home” in twenty-first century through...

Join us for the launch of Go Home!, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop collection published in collaboration with the Feminist Press that images “home” in twenty-first century through fiction, memoir, and poetry. Both urgent and meditative, this anthology moves beyond the model-minority myth and showcases the the necessity of both...

Join us for the launch of Go Home!, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop collection published in collaboration with the Feminist Press. Writers imagine “home” in the twenty-first century through an array of fiction, memoir, and poetry. Both urgent and meditative, this anthology moves beyond the model-minority myth and showcases the...

Community is often touted as the best reason to get an MFA. But what happens when the program ends, or if an MFA isn’t right for you? Administrators from organizations changing the literary ecosystem discuss the opportunities for connection that exist in nonacademic settings. Topics include writing, publishing, and networking...

How can Asian American writers build a stronger network? What does it mean to be a writer of color in these times? This third annual Asian American Caucus is a town hall-style hang out and community space. Come meet other Asian American writers and discuss fellowships, publication opportunities, and resources...

Join us for a reading on India and caste with prize-winning novelist Neel Mukherjee and Sujatha Gidla, the author of the critically-acclaimed debut memoir Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India (FSG, 2017). Mukherjee's latest novel, A State of Freedom (W.W. Norton, 2018) follows the...

How does what we know influence our quest for love? Three years into a graduate program in science, the narrator of Weike Wang’s critically-acclaimed Chemistry (Knopf, 2017) cooly compares receiving a marriage proposal from her boyfriend to the careful problem solving that occurs between lab partners. The eccentric protagonist of...

Five Sessions, 2.5 hours (6:30PM-9:00PM) Tuesdays*, February 20th, 27th, March 6th**, March 20th, March 27th Fees & Payment Options: $270 General/$240 Member (JOIN THE FANCLUB!) Registration Deadline: February 13th, 2018 *There will be no class on March 13th. **On March 6th, class will run 7PM-9PM. REGISTER HERE Why You Should...

One Session, 3 hours (2PM-5PM)* Saturday, February 17 Fees & Payment Options: General $75/Member $65 (JOIN THE FANCLUB!) Registration Deadline: February 14 *This class could run slightly longer than 3 hours, based on how many students are in the class. REGISTER HERE Course Description: This will be a 3-4 hour...

Come hear seminal Asian American writer Karen Tei Yamashita read from Letters to Memory, her visual and archival project based on family letters of Japanese internment alongside Families for Freedom activists reading letters from immigrant detainees. We’ll also feature poet Christine Kitano, who writes about her father’s internment during World War II,...

Mic Check! Are you a writer? Come share your work at our next edition of our open mic, Mouth to Mouth. Hosted by AAWW Fam poets Sonia Guiñansaca and Kay Ulanday Barrett, this edition of Mouth to Mouth features Tova Ricardo and Amanda Torres. Mouth to Mouth seeks to provide...

You're a third culture kid who writes third genre* work: You have good sense when it comes to knowing whether what you're writing is better off as a poem or when it ought to be prose. But what do you do when it's both? Together, we will explore the art of the lyric essay, a poet's prose.

Join us for a special reading with the Open City fellows. Open City documents the pulse of metropolitan Asian America as it's being lived on the streets of New York right now. Join us for a reading with our Muslim Communities fellows, Humera Afridi, Roja Heydarpour, Raad Rahman, Sarah Khan...

One Session, 90 minutes (3:00PM-4:30PM) Saturday, January 27th, 2018 Fees & Payment Options: $25 Full payment due before first class. REGISTER HERE Why You Should Take This Class: Everyone has a unique story waiting to be unearthed. Like diamonds under a bedrock, you need the right tools in order to...