Past Events

Authors Jenny Han, Justina Chen Headley, Grace Lin and David Yoo read from their novels and talk about writing children's and young adult fiction, subverting stereotypes and creating Asian American characters that reflect reality in literature for youth. This event is $5 at the door and free for Workshop members. Co-sponsored with the Coalition for Asian American...

Geography is literary destiny. Come attend a panel discussion featuring women writers from four continents on the powerful notions of home, how gender differences influence a writer's literary landscape, what women writers around the world have in common, and if there is such a thing as a female imagination. Featured...

If you are writing a book or have completed one, you will need an agent. Where? How? Who? Learn how to avoid the painful, expensive process of sending out manuscripts yourself blindly and waiting for rejection letters by attending a panel discussion featuring four top literary agents sharing expertise on...

Poet Ed Bok Lee presents a night of poetry and music with special guests Pablo Medina, Taiyo Na and Purvi Shah. In Real Karaoke People, poems and prose combine tradition and pop culture with the energy of hip-hop, the off-key voices of karaoke, and a girl's wicked drawl that first crackled through a KFC late-night drive-thru speaker. Ed Bok...

Mong-Lan is the author of Song of the Cicadas (Juniper Prize, UMASS Press, 2001), which won the Great Lakes Colleges Association's New Writers Award, and was a finalist for the Poetry Society of America's Norma Farber Award. Her second book is Why is the Edge Always Windy?(Tupelo Press, 2005). Honors include a Pushcart Prize,...

Readings by Asian American and African American poets Tina Chang holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University. Her poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Indiana Review, Quarterly West, and the anthology Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation (Univ. of Illinois Press, 2004), among others, and is the author of a collection of poetry, Half-Lit Houses (Four Way...

Want/need professional advice and criticism from publishing professionals? Here is your chance to have a one-on-one discussion about your work, the publishing market and getting an agent/book contract. 1. Email us an attachment of a short story, novel excerpt with 1-paragraph synopsis or book proposal (20-page limit). Include your name, contact information...

Opening remarks by Arthur Sze. Dedicated to the memory of law professor, civil rights leader and musician/poet Chris Iijima. Copresented with The Poetry Society of America and The New School Graduate Writing Program. For tickets, call 212-229-5488, $10 general, $7 for students and members.

In collaboration with Symphony Space's Selected Shorts: A Celebration of the Short Story and PEN's Freedom To Write. Three short stories from Iran and Indonesia. Curated by Larry Siems and Quang Bao. "The Letter Writer" by M.T. Sharif. Read by actor Joe Morton. "Inem" by Pramoedya Ananta Toer from the...

An adoptee with synesthesia, love poems, Operation Babylift, mistaken identities. A night of short story, poetry and prose with three Vietnamese American women writers. Booksigning and reception. In collaboration with The Drawing Center, on the occasion of the exhibition Persistent Vestiges: Drawing from the American-Vietnam War, on view through February 11....

You wrote it, you showed it, you loved it (still). Now learn how to improve your chances of getting a short story published. A panel discussion featuring four top short story editors at major magazines and literary journals on how to crack the submissions pile and get your work out...

Curated by Fred Ho. In Heartbeat of Struggle (University of Minnesota Press, 2005), Diane C. Fujino traces the life of one of the most prominent and widely respected Asian American activists to emerge from the 1960’s human rights movements. Join AAWW in celebrating this biographical tribute to Yuri Kochiyama. The program will...

Andrew Lam’s Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora (Heyday Books, 2005) and Quang X. Pham’s A Sense of Duty: My Father, My American Journey (Ballantine, 2005). Lam offers a journalistic eye on the Vietnam of today, mixed with memoirs and personal essays. Pham, a childhood refugee turned US Marine, bridges the past and...

A free informational session about a new funding program providing grants to individual artists in Literature, Dance and Film/Video from Jerome Foundation President Cynthia Gehrig. Open to individuals from all different ethnicities, ages and economic backgrounds living in the five boroughs of New York City. 4:30 – 6pm at the...

Join Workshop Board members Lilia Villanueva and Luis Francia at TAMA Gallery in Tribeca for a special Workshop party. Proceeds for items and art sold at the reception go to support youth writing initiatives. Special guest star MacArthur Genius grant recipient, novelist and playwright Han Ong. Works on paper by...

Pope Benedict 16th (previously Cardinal Ratzinger) predicted that Buddhism would replace Marxism as the Catholic Church’s main enemy. At the same time, it is growing at a rapid clip around the world. World renowned Tibetan Buddhist scholar and Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University Dr....

The Workshop’s open mic series continues…bring your poems, rants, monologues, diary entries, blog downloads, op/eds, guitars, magic acts. Put your name in a hat to see if you’re lucky enough to score 4 minutes at the mic. Featuring readings and performances from VL Fellows N. Rain Noe and Timothy Mullaney....

Come celebrate our 14th birthday! On September 15, all books, journals, poetry volumes, short stories, novels and anthologies will be sold at $5. Really. Phone orders accepted at 212.494.0061. In-house sale from 12noon to 7pm.

In Inheritance (W.W. Norton & Co., 2004), Hong retraces her family’s history by piecing together the story of her mother and aunt—sisters once inseparable, now in a state of bitterness and estrangement. A provocative take on a story of desire, love and family strife, spanning seven decades from 1930’s China to 1990’s...