Past Events

Hanif Kureishi and Amitava Kumar
Join us for an intimate lunch with writer Hanif Kureishi, hailed by the New York Times as one of 50 greatest British writers since 1945. Kureishi’s newly released Collected Essays presents decades of his writings on topics intimate (the making of his Oscar-nominated film My Beautiful Laundrette), literary (the nature...
April 27, 2011
12:30 PM
Yuva Frontier Indian Grill
230 East 58th Street
New York New York
R. Zamora Linmark & Gayatri Gopinath
Tired of cliched narratives of diasporic homecomings? Longing for an honest and irreverent story of coming, going, and never quite arriving? Don't miss the chance to hear R. Zamora Linmark read from his newest novel Leche--a witty, lyrical tale of a young man's return to the place of his birth and...
April 16, 2011
7:00 PM
Asian American Writers’ Workshop
112 W27th Street, 6th Floor
New York New York
Bushra Rehman and Tom X. Chao
Our monthly open mic party is always a riot. April 15 will be no exception. New York City-born poet Bushra Rehman, who Ishle Yi Park has called "a little bundle of magic," and performance artist and playwright Tom X. Chao, who, according to Richard Yates, is the "author of at...
April 15, 2011
9:00 PM
Asian American Writers’ Workshop
112 W27th Street, 6th Floor
New York New York
Linda Faigao Hall, Nita Noveno, Susan Soriano, and R.A. Villanueva
In this special 20th Anniversary Workshop reading, we honor Luis H. Francia, poet, journalist, professor, and former board member of The Asian American Writers' Workshop. Francia will be reading from his just published chapbook The Beauty of Ghosts, alongside writer/friends. Linda Faigao Hall, Nita Noveno, Susan Soriano, and R.A. Villanueva will...
April 8, 2011
7:00 PM
Asian American Writers’ Workshop
112 W27th Street, 6th Floor
New York New York
Ishle Yi Park, Suheir Hammad, Taiyo Na, Chiwan Choi, YaliniDream
We have all been struck by the unimaginable loss and despair caused by the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and deadly tsunami that struck Japan on March 11. To support the relief effort, we're hosting poet, musician, and new mother Ishle Yi Park, who's flying into town from Kauai, Hawai'i. The New York...
April 3, 2011
7:00 PM
Asian American Writers’ Workshop
112 W27th Street, 6th Floor
New York New York
Jennifer 8. Lee
Jennifer 8. Lee, author of The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, is giving walking tours of New York City's Chinatown street food as a fundraiser for the Asian American Writers' Workshop. It's a 2.5 hour tour that includes (depending on availability) Xi'an Famous Foods, Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, Xinjiang skewers, banh mi, pulled...
April 2, 2011
2:00 PM
Museum of Chinese in America
215 Centre Street
New York New York
Sara Goudarzi, Narges Bajoghli, & Najila Naderi
From Central Asia to Iran to Brooklyn, a mutli-genre literary reading to celebrate Nowruz, our common New Year, with ground-breaking writers from the Afghan and Iranian American diasporas. Acknowledging the deeply entwined histories of our peoples and the overlapping richness of our literary traditions, this reading is inspired by desire...
March 25, 2011
7:00 PM
Zora Space
315 4th Avenue
Brooklyn New York
Jason Kao Hwang and Becky Yamamoto
Waiting for the warmer weather? Join us for this month's Mouth to Mouth Open Mic which is sure to raise the temperature. NEA award winning composer and violinist Jason Kao Hwang will give a special acoustic performance, and performer Becky Yamamoto, called "priceless" by The New York Times and "expertly deadpan" by The...
March 18, 2011
9:00 PM
Asian American Writers’ Workshop
112 W27th Street
New York New York
Javier Gonzalez, Rene Perez, Jeff Chang, Roco, & Favianna Rodriguez
In a nation with fast and vast demographic changes, what is the role of musicians and their fans in moving beyond hatred? Is SB 1070 in Arizona only the tip of the anti-immigrant movement iceberg? Artists and activists join together to discuss the Sound Strike and their commitment to working together to...
March 17, 2011
3:30 PM
South by Southwest
Austin Convention Center, Room 9ABC
Austin Texas
Catherine Chung & Julie Otsuka
If America is a nation of immigrants, it's also a nation of aliens. What has it meant historically to be a traveler or a migrant, or to exist as an outsider within a cultural landscape? What does it mean now? We're celebrating the launch of Granta Issue #114: Aliens with editor John...
March 3, 2011
7:00 PM
Asian American Writers’ Workshop
112 W27th Street
New York New York
Cheryl Tan & Ava Chin
Join us for a delectable evening with NYC food and fashion writer Cheryl Tan and NY Times Urban Foraging Columnist Ava Chin as they explore the relationship between food, family, and memory. Cheryl Tan will read from and discuss her new memoir, A Tiger in the Kitchen: A Memoir of Food...
February 24, 2011
7:00 PM
Asian American Writers’ Workshop
112 W27th Street, 6th Floor
New York New York
Cai Tianxin & Bob Holman
Contemporary Chinese poet Cai Tianxin gives a talk on the history of Chinese Poetry, reads from his own avant work, and discusses his place in the continuum of Chinese poetry with poetry legend Bob Holman. A columnist of the monthly magazine Book City in Shanghai, which is considered the Chinese New Yorker, and...
February 12, 2011
2:00 PM
Asian American Writers’ Workshop
112 W27th Street, 6th Floor
New York New York
Kelly Tsai & Ocean Vuong
2011 is starting off with a bang! We're ushering in the new year with a Mouth to Mouth Open Mic featuring activist and spoken word artist Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai and poet Ocean Vuong. So, come, bring a friend, and be ready to get your socks rocked off by poetry. Ocean...
February 11, 2011
9:00 PM
Asian American Writers’ Workshop
112 W27th Street, 6th Floor
New York New York
Ken Chen, Kimiko Hahn, Marie Lee, Ed Lin, Patrick Rosal, Jennifer Tseng
Over the past twenty years, the Asian American Writers' Workshop has grown from a Greek diner meeting into a preeminent intellectual sanctuary for Asian American literature. Join us for a cross-genre, cross-generational reading celebrating the Workshop's twentieth year. Writers will read from their work and talk about the Workshop's influence...
February 5, 2011
12:00 PM
AWP, Virginia B Room
Marriott Wardman Park, Lobby Level
Washington D.C.
Ken Chen, V.V. Ganeshananthan, Manijeh Nasrabadi, & Xu Xi
From Hmong to Iran to Turkmenistan, Asian American literature is broadening its terrain. The Asian American Writers' Workshop is at the fore of this conversation on "radical inclusivity." But what unifies these cultures and aesthetics? Join an eclectic group of Asian American Writers in conversation as they come together to...
February 4, 2011
10:30 AM
AWP, Empire Ballroom
Omni Shoreham Hotel, West Lobby
Washington D.C.
Maxine Hong Kingston
"'You must not tell anyone,' my mother said, 'what I am about to tell you.'" So began The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, Maxine Hong Kingston's first book, heralding a writer who, possibly more than any, has defined what Asian American literature has meant over the last several...
February 1, 2011
6:00 PM
Chambers Fine Arts
522 West 19th Street
New York New York
Rana Dasgupta & Naeem Mohaiemen
Commonwealth Prize-winning author Rana Dasgupta will be in conversation with writer and artist Naeem Mohaiemen, reading from and discussing his novel, Solo. Come hear why Salman Rushdie has called Solo a "novel of exceptional, astonishing strangeness," and argues the novel "confirms Rana Dasgupta as the most unexpected and original Indian...
January 29, 2011
6:30 PM
Asian American Writers’ Workshop
112 W27th Street, 6th Floor
New York New York
Jennifer 8. Lee, Ed Lin, Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai, & Eddie Huang
Does your mom leave desperate voicemails asking you to "please pick up phone? hello? are you there?" or take twenty-four more napkins than she needs at Taco Bell? Your mom may be a fob. What began in 2008 as a blog featuring endearing and nosy texts and emails from Teresa Wu and...
January 4, 2011
7:00 PM
Asian American Writers’ Workshop
112 W27th Street, 6th Floor
New York New York
Taiyo Na & Koba Sounds
Our last open mic of 2010 features two New York-based musicians and poets Taiyo Na and Koba Sounds. Come hear them and spit a rhyme yourself! Or a poem, or a story, or some comedy— we've got room for it all if you can fit it in 5 minutes! Honored...
December 10, 2010
9:00 PM
Asian American Writers’ Workshop
112 W27th Street, 6th Floor
New York New York
Michael Syjuco
Michael Syjuco's Ilustrado won the Man Asian Prize before it was even published, and has been called a "literary landmark for the Philippines and beyond" by Booklist. Mixing fiction with nonfiction,Ilustrado is a family saga of four generations tracing 150 years of Philippine history forged under the Spanish, Americans, and Filipinos themselves. Woven...
December 2, 2010
6:30 PM
The Asia Society
750 Park Avenue (70th Street)
New York New York
Juliet S. Kono, Fred Chao, Negin Farsad and others!
If you open your mouth and the AAWW is around, will you make a sound? Will these sounds make sense? Will they make a story? You've got questions, we've got answers at our open to the public open mic series. This week we welcome poet and first time novelist, Juliet...
November 19, 2010
8:00 PM
Asian American Writers’ Workshop
112 W27th Street, 6th Floor
New York New York
Barbara Jane Reyes, Craig Santos Perez, & Sueyeun Juliette Lee
Sueyeun Juliette Lee, Barbara Jane Reyes, and Craig Santos Perez probe the identities of the outcast, the displaced in poems that experiment with everything from internet news sources to the Book of Genesis and Tagalog tradition. In Diwata, Reyes inherits the responsibility of remembering from her grandfather, a survivor of World War...
November 15, 2010
7:00 PM
Asian American Writers’ Workshop
112 W27th Street, 6th Floor
New York New York
Yunte Huang & Charles Bernstein
Charlie Chan, a fictional Chinese detective played by white men on the silver screen, captivated American audiences for decades with one-liners like "tongue often hang man quicker than rope" and is today seen as a yellowface relic. In Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with...
October 28, 2010
7:00 PM
Asian American Writers’ Workshop
112 W27th Street, 6th Floor
New York New York
Gish Jen & Billy Tsien
Gish Jen's latest novel, World and Town,explores new starts and shifting American towns in what Publisher's Weekly heralds as an "expansive story of identity and acceptance." Hattie Kong loses her husband and best friend in the same year—"like having twins. She got to book the same church with the same pianist for both...
October 7, 2010
7:00 PM
Asian American Writers’ Workshop
112 W27th Street, 6th Floor
New York New York
Mae Ngai & Aziz Rana
Join Mae Ngai and Aziz Rana as they discuss family lives and legal battles that offer insight into the Chinese-American experience. Called an "absorbing story" by The New York Times, The Lucky Ones, the latest book by historian and Guggenheim fellow Mae Ngai, is a compelling account of three generations of the...
October 7, 2010
12:30 PM
Asia Society
725 Park Ave (70th Street)
New York New York
Linh Dinh & Cihan Kaan
Linh Dinh and Cihan Kaan create landscapes where Coney Island meets Mars, post-war Saigon backdrops lovelorn characters, and rich boys pay to be Muslim for a day. In Love Like Hate, Linh Dinh, who writer Ed Park calls "one of the secret masters of short fiction," uses his deadpan humor to explore...
October 6, 2010
7:00 PM
Asian American Writers’ Workshop
112 W27th Street, 6th Floor
New York New York
Yiyun Li
Yiyun Li has recently been named a MacArthur genius and featured as one of the Top 20 Writers under 40 by The New Yorker. Her latest collection of short stories, Gold Boy, Emerald Girl, has been heralded as "brilliant" by Publishers Weekly and "further proof that [she] deserves to be considered among the best living fiction writers" by Kirkus...
October 5, 2010
7:00 PM
Asian American Writer’s Workshop
112 W27th Street, 6th Floor
New York New York
Tyehimba Jess, Patricia Smith, Ken Chen, & Eric Gamalinda
Join hosts and curators Tina Chang and Tracy K. Smith for the fifth annual collaboration between Cave Canem and the Asian American Writers' Workshop. Featuring readings by Ken Chen, Eric Gamalinda, Tyehimba Jess and Patricia Smith. Detroit native Tyehimba Jess's leadbelly was a 2004 National Poetry Series selection. Library Journal and Black Issues Book Review both named...
October 1, 2010
7:00 PM
Asian American Writers’ Workshop
112 W27th Street, 6th Floor
New York New York
Natalie Kim & Samantha Chanse
Already sick of schoolwork? Ditch your #2 pencil, pick up you guitar and join New York natives actress Natalie Kim and writer and performer Samantha Chanse on Friday night: bring your best work (or your worst)—either way, drinks on us. Actress and New York native Natalie Kim recently completed a successful run...
September 24, 2010
9:00 PM
Asian American Writers’ Workshop
112 W27th Street, 6th Floor
New York New York
Fatima Bhutto
Q&A with Steve Coll, New America Foundation Fatima Bhutto's third book, Songs of Blood and Sword, details her complicated childhood in Pakistan, wrestling with national history—from Partition to the post 9/11 "War on Terror"—and its relationship to her father's assassination and her family's political dynasty. Join Steve Coll, President of New America...
September 24, 2010
6:30 PM
Asia Society
725 Park Ave (70th Street)
New York New York
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