Past Events

Marilyn Chin said: ‘Our poetry is not a static enterprise but a thriving, historical progression.’ As we look at Asian American poetry today, much as changed, yet much has stayed the same. This panel will feature a group of diverse literary critics, anthologists, and poets in a vibrant discussion to...

The next installment of our blindingly fun Mouth to Mouth Open Mic is here! Brave the mad March weather to hear Leah Winkler and Annie Choi at our monthly party. Leah, a current member of Youngblood Theater Company, is a talented playwright and director. The New York Times praised her...

Don Lee, Ken Chen, Prageeta Sharma, and Nami Mun read new work and the life behind their literature: private writing rituals; relationships with mentors and peers; favorite books, songs on iTunes repeat and performance-enhancing alcoholic drinks; social media and other procrastination devices. Ask nicely and they’ll talk about writing as...

Bringing together the best of two worlds -- poetry and noraebang --"Real Karaoke People" is a literary reading/karaoke event that will harmonize, shake, split, and excavate the deeper musical notes of diasporic narratives centered on community, family, the romantic, and immigration. Inspired by Ed Bok Lee’s Real Karaoke People, this...

Does your knowledge about the Ramayana come entirely from comics your mom bought you from Jackson Heights? Or are you a comic book fan interested in engaging with one of the bestselling comics in both Asia and the world? Party down with the Workshop’s tribute to Amar Chitra Katha, the...

Does Valentine’s Day have you all atwitter? Ease into your “mahal kita” with an afternoon of stellar performances from acclaimed Filipino poets and writers. The featured performances from Hossannah Asuncion, Joseph O. Legaspi, Nita Noveno, Bino Realuyo, Ricco Villanueva Siasoco, and Lara Stapleton, as well as performances from Filipino community...

Add power to your poetic punches and fleetness to your formal footwork. These classes will focus on adding techniques, tension, and twists to your expressive toolbox. Specific classes will focus on landing leaps, torquing turns, and the uses and abuses of certain voids. There will be a weekly writing assignment...

Not ready for the New Year festivities to end just yet? Celebrate the Lunar New Year with hosts Ed Lin and Jen Kwok at our first open mic of 2012, featuring the brilliantly funny sketch comedian Angel Yau, who has performed at the NYC Underground Comedy Festival and the Upright...

Are you a high school or college student who wants to be a writer? Or just someone who’s ever wanted to grab the mic? Come join two incredible artists as they show you the ropes of performance and spoken word poetry. YaliniDream artfully weaves her spoken word with music and...

Xu Xi has been called a "pioneer writer from Asia in English" by the New York Times, and a pioneer of a distinct kind of diasporic language. Shortlisted for the Man Asia award, her latest work, Habit of a Foreign Sky, moves between Hong Kong and New York, as the biracial female...

Our riotous Open Mic this week features Master (of comedy and karate) Lee and Sung (playwright genius) Rno. Open your mouth and say ahh—or say a poem! Or say a story! Or say a skat! Say anything! The sky (or at least the tin ceiling of Chelsea digs) is the...

Five Filipino New Yorkers, Hossannah Asuncion, Joseph O. Legaspi, Bino Realuyo, Lara Stapleton, and R.A. Villanueva, read poetry and prose. From the Philippines and across the United States, these award-winning poets and novelists share their work. Bino A. Realuyo is the author of The Umbrella Country, a novel, andThe Gods We Worship Live...

Join us for the CultureStrike festival: a series of free public arts workshops followed by a free outdoor festival featuring writers and artists from the CultureStrike delegation. CultureStrike Arts Workshops Free to the public! Wednesday, September 14, 4-6PM For the latest information, go to http://www.wordstrike.net/ Artists, Social Media, and Social Justice The...

When Outsourced premiered last fall filled with tired, overplayed jokes that relied on bad desi accents and references to sacred cows, it seemed that American popular cultural representations of India had officially shifted from the "land of the ashram" to "the land of the call center." Whether you laughed or cringed when...

Join comedian Jen Kwok and Ed Lin for our monthly open mic, Mouth to Mouth. This month, we feature two artists whose works straddle multiple genres and forms. Multidisciplinary artist Soomi Kim and singer-songer Jay Legaspi will dance, sing, perform, and recite. We hope you don't stay in your seats. Sign-up for a 5-minute slot before the night...

How has the form of memoir been utilized by women writers? What can memoir tell us about history? From 1970s Iran to 1900s China, these are the stories of exceptional women. Jasmin Darznik weaves the experiences of three generations of Iranian women to reflect on their struggle against political and...

How has the form of memoir been utilized by women writers? What can memoir tell us about history? From 1970s Iran to 1900s China, these are the stories of exceptional women. Jasmin Darznik weaves the experiences of three generations of Iranian women to reflect on their struggle against political and...

Over the last few years, new media platforms have transformed reporting in our communities: neighborhood-based blogs have informed news coverage; ethnic news organizations are collaborating in ways never seen before; and activists use social media to organize around important issues facing their community. Open City Project Director Lena Sze speaks along side Ed...

On May 6, NOTICE, a series of readings and performances exploring the moment of stepping off the cliff and into the abyss, comes to the Asian American Writers' Workshop. Join us for an intoxicating evening navigating fear, resolve, panic, exhilaration, death, and rebirth as featured artists Joseph O. Legaspi, Kamilah Aisha Moon, Samantha...

From the Indian Ocean to the American west, three daring fiction writers tell the story of the dispossessed. Like many characters in postcolonial lit., their protagonists have been cut off from motherlands by war, prison and migration. But the terrain of dislocation these writers explore--spanning the island of Mauritius in...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...