Past Events

Have you ever held a beloved object--say, an old photograph or a faded letter--and found yourself transported back into a space of memory? Join us for a reading featuring four poets exploring the the vessels that carry us across the waters of memory. We’ll celebrate the two winners of Singapore...

In addressing the impact of mass incarceration, there is an increasing need to center the voices of those directly impacted—not only as experts, but as integrated contributors. But for writers in prison, access to participation in the literary community is limited by not only stigma and physical restriction, but financial...

It’s time for another epic evening of singing, reading, and joy! AAWW is teaming up with Kaya Press, Kundiman, AALR, and the Smithsonian APA Center to bring Literaoke to AWP in Portland. SATURDAY MARCH 30TH AT CHOPSTICKS KARAOKE BAR

Through their prose and poetry, writers reflect on the idea of the ”bona fide relationship”—the term the Supreme Court used in 2017 to grant an exception on President Trump’s travel ban. Who counts as close family in the eyes of the state? How do our relationships transcend those recognized by the court? These readings shed light on the ways that individual writers and communities wrestle with an ongoing effort to undermine their sense of belonging.

For Asian American poets, what is the relationship between bearing witness to history and giving voice to marginalized communities? Four writers talk about how their work as poets, editors, translators, and scholars allows them to uncover intimacies among seemingly disparate colonial histories and contextualize narratives of intergenerational trauma. They draw on multidisciplinary practices to explore how the individual pursuits of poets can build empathy and community. Moderated by Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello, Yanyi, Emily Jungmin Yoon, E.J. Koh, Monica Sok.

We’re hosting a book signing for Margins Poetry Editor Emily Jungmin Yoon at booth #6000 from 12:00PM to 12:30PM on Friday March 29. Come meet Emily and get your copy of her collection A Cruelty Special to Our Species signed.

CENTER JUSTIFY: An #AWP19 OFFSITE EXTRAVAGANZA At PSU Native American Student and Community Center 710 SW Jackson St, Portland, Oregon 97201   There will be readings! There will be unforgettable performances! There will be camaraderie! And there will be dinner! (meat + vegan DUMPLINGS & FRIED CHICKEN from XLB) Come...

What does it mean to steward Asian American literature, organizationally, collectively, and individually. This fourth 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 available to support you. Organized by the Asian American...

We are going to be at booth #6000 at the AWP Bookfair, all conference long! We'll be sharing space and hanging out with our friends Kaya Press, the Asian American Literary Review, and World Stage Press. Come by and say hi!

Six Sessions, 2.5 hours (6:30PM-9PM) Tuesdays, March 26th - April 30th Fees & Payment Options: $325 General/$295 Member (JOIN THE FANCLUB!) Registration Deadline: March 19th *This is a small class. Please apply through the link below if you are interested. Please complete this application. We will notify you if you...

Co-presented by the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network and Asian American Writers’ Workshop. Co-sponsored by the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU. In the Summer of 2018, the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network invited writers from the US, Canada, Australia, France, and Indonesia to California to participate in a writing residency, foster the Vietnamese...

How can poets of color use visual art, photos, and sound to explore absences in language? Come through for a reading featuring three multidisciplinary poets whose work embodies multiple genres of art, translation, and sound. Come see award-winning poet Diana Khoi Nguyen, whose debut collection Ghost Of was a finalist...

Join us for a marathon reading of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's avant-garde classic, Dictee, organized by Sarah Schulman at Performance Space New York. Featuring Theresa's brother John Cha, Yong Soon Min, Lawrence Rinder, Ken Chen, Nuar Alsadir, Lee Ann Brown, Alexander Chee, Ava Chin, Kandice Chuh, Una Chung, Monika Gagnon, Erica Cho,...

Have you ever written a recipe that turned out to be a love poem? Does your aunties’ fervor for seafood on sale feel like a hell-raising occasion of resistance? Join us for a meditation of Filipinx food and the immigrant experience with four romantic, melancholic, and witty gastronomical pinxys. We’ll...

Join us for an evening of Korean poetry in translation with Kim Hyesoon, a groundbreaking feminist poet and one of the most influential contemporary poets of South Korea. Her latest poetry collection, The Autobiography of Death, is a breathtaking collective elegy inspired by the Sewol Ferry Disaster of April 2014, and a narration performed...

***THIS EVENT WAS POSTPONED FROM 1/31. THIS EVENT WILL TAKE PLACE ON 2/07*** Join us for a reading with Gina Apostol to celebrate her latest work of fiction, Insurrecto, a tour de force about about the Philippines’ past and present told through rivaling scripts from an American filmmaker and her...

Is immigration your second language? Join us for a celebration of poet Marwa Helal’s debut collection Invasive species, a bold collection that pokes holes in the English of immigration officials, lols at the false expertise of Western commentators on the Middle East — and asks for nothing less than a...

There are enough people in American prisons, jails, and immigration detention centers to populate a country. And like a country, American incarceration has its own language. There's the technocratic and euphemistic language of the state—offender, felon, illegal immigrant, detainee, parolee. There's also the language that the incarcerated use to describe...

Every year in the wintertime, Critical Resistance New York City sends a note of solidarity, hope, and encouragement to all of the 1,500+ subscribers of The Abolitionist newspaper that are currently locked up in jails, detention centers, and prisons on the east coast. This year, we invite you to join...

Join us for an event to honor the work and legacy of the queer Korean American novelist Samuel Park, whose novel The Caregiver was released posthumously this past fall. A panel of queer and Asian American writers featuring by Alexander Chee, T. Kira Madden, Mitchell Kuga, Eugene Lim and Daniel...

Call Her Ganda follows the tragic murder of Jennifer Laude, a Filipina transgender woman by a U.S. marine, the community organizing and effort that brought her murderer to justice - and the role that the long US-Philippine relationship played in this. Amidst a media storm and police inquiry, as Jennifer’s...

Nov 15th is The Day of the Imprisoned Writer, and Bangladeshi photographer Shahidul Alam remains incarcerated. Join author Salil Tripathi and journalist Jennifer Chowdhury in conversation with The Polis Project as they shed light on the political, and historical events that have led to the current crisis in Bangladesh and...

Six Sessions, 2.5 hours (6:30PM-9PM) Mondays, November 12 - December 17 Fees & Payment Options: $325 General/$295 Member (JOIN THE FAN CLUB!) *This is a small class. Please apply through the link below if you are interested. Please complete this application. We will notify you if you are accepted into the...

Join us for a reading with three Korean diasporic writers whose work spans memoir, poetry, and fiction to look at the legacy of the Korean War and the life of Korean adoptees in the United States. Eugenia Kim will read The Kinship of Secrets, a riveting story two sisters, one...

Come hear two storytellers who became friends while working in animation and are releasing absurdist graphic novels based off popular web comics: internet sensation Aminder Dhaliwal, whose debut graphic novel Woman World started off an an infectiously funny instagram comic about a group of women who gab and hang out...

UPDATE: Please note the new location. This program will now take place at the NYU King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center located at 53 Washington Square South. While conducting research for her book Coolie Woman, Gaiutra Bahadur (Visiting Scholar, A/P/A Institute at NYU) came across Lal Bihari Sharma’s Holi...

Join us for a reading with two South Asian diasporic writers who both have published ambitious and energizing new works of political fiction. Novelist and journalist Preti Taneja will read from her debut novel, We That Are Young, a modern-day rendition of King Lear in which a family dynasty implodes...

How do we document our first-generation elders’ histories, and the stories of the vanishing communities they grew up in? Join us for a special event with Chinese-American writers who use an innovative mix of memoir, oral history, and intergenerational storytelling to do just that. We’ll hear a special presentation from...

Join us for a book launch and conversation for Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and disability justice poetics conversation with Leah and Cyree Jarelle Johnson. What the hell is disability justice? How do collective care, disability justice and sick and disabled Black and brown femmes save the...

Join us for a special reading with the Open City fellows. We’ll hear from Neighborhood Fellows Roshan Abraham, Pearl Bhatnagar, and Huiying Bernice Chan, who have been documenting the pulse of metropolitan Asian America as it's being lived on the streets of New York right now, and our Muslim Communities...