Past Events

RSVP HERE! Ishle Yi Park, the first woman poet laureate of Queens, joins the Asian American Writers’ Workshop to celebrate the launch of Angel & Hannah, a novel of dynamic free verse. The book follows Hannah, a Korean American girl from Queens, and Angel, a Puerto Rican boy from Brooklyn,...

4 Sessions, Thursdays, May 5/6-5/27, 7 PM ET Sliding Scale $100-$200  Register here! Tapping into the political power of magic and astrology for social, community, and personal transformation, Alice Sparkly Kat’s cross-cultural approach to astrology as a magical language unmasks the political power of astrology, showing how it can be...

RSVP HERE! This May, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop joins the Poetry Coalition, a vital national alliance of more than 25 independent poetry organizations, in curating a program exploring the theme “It is burning./ It is dreaming./ It is waking up.: Poetry & Environmental Justice.” The line “It is burning./...

RSVP HERE! *We will call for open mic performers closer to the date of this event. This event takes place in a Zoom Meeting-- RSVP to receive the link to the Zoom room shortly before the event. Captions provided. ASL Interpretation provided by Pro Bono ASL. Mic Check! Are you...

RSVP HERE!  Our series Radical Thinkers places radical academics directly in conversation with trailblazing writers, poets, and artists, creating and nurturing two-way dialogues that will interrogate some of the most pressing issues facing Asian and Asian diasporic communities today. Featuring an interdisciplinary lineup of scholars and creatives, these unexpected pairings...

RSVP HERE! This April, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop will partner with indie bookstore Books Are Magic to celebrate musician Michelle Zauner’s debut memoir, Crying In H Mart. Best known for her work as the musician Japanese Breakfast, Zauner’s memoir is an astonishing debut: a rich, intimate, and lyrical story...

RSVP HERE! "I had forgotten this chant that was once mine, given me by my mother, who may not have known its power to remind. She said I would grow up a wife and a slave, but she taught me the song of the warrior woman, Fa Mu Lan. I...

RSVP HERE! Our quarterly Fireside Chat series brings an Asian author, artist, or academic into conversation with Jafreen Uddin, Executive Director of AAWW. This March, Jafreen will be joined by writer, editor, and professor Piyali Bhattacharya to share updates from the Workshop, and to discuss AAWW from a writers’ perspective....

This *Free* Zoom Webinar has a cap of 100 attendees. Overflow will be directed to the livestream on AAWW's Youtube channel. Live captions provided. RSVP HERE! On March 23rd at 6 PM ET, join the Asian American Writers’ Workshop for a lecture with Tamara K. Nopper. This lecture will last...

RSVP HERE! Join the Asian American Writers' Workshop and Restless Books for a celebration of Priyanka Champaneri's debut novel, The City of Good Death. Priyanka will be in conversation with special guest Marjan Kamali, author of The Stationery Shop. Winner of the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing, The...

RSVP HERE! Acclaimed poet, novelist, and essayist Kazim Ali joins the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and Milkweed Editions to launch his new memoir, Northern Light: Power, Land, and the Memory of Water. Northern Light, a sensitive and elegantly structured exploration of land and power, is told through Ali’s recollections of his...

RSVP here! MOUTH to MOUTH, Thursday, 2/25/2021, 7PM-8:30PM ET Featuring Kay Ulanday Barrett, Ashna Ali, Jubi Arriola Headley, & Faylita Hicks **This event will be captioned** Mic Check! Are you a writer? Come share your work at our next edition of our open mic and showcase, Mouth to Mouth. Hosted...

RSVP HERE! The Asian American Writers’ Workshop is delighted to celebrate the launch of writer Nikesh Shukla’s new memoir, Brown Baby: A Memoir of Race, Family, and Home. An intimate look at love, grief, and fatherhood, Shukla’s memoir “bears witness to our turbulent times” (Bernardine Evaristo) with humor, honesty, and...

RSVP HERE! Join the Asian American Writers’ Workshop as we celebrate award-winning writer Chang-rae Lee’s electrifying new novel, My Year Abroad. A surprising, tender, and humorous work, My Year Abroad is a story unique to Chang-rae Lee’s immense talents as a writer, and explores the division between East and West,...

RSVP HERE! Our series Radical Thinkers places radical academics directly in conversation with trailblazing writers, poets, and artists, creating and nurturing two-way dialogues that will interrogate some of the most pressing issues facing Asian and Asian diasporic communities today. Featuring an interdisciplinary lineup of scholars and creatives, these unexpected pairings...

Tickets to the film screening are now SOLD OUT. The post-screening discussion between writer/director Lee Isaac Chung and author Min Jin Lee will be livestreamed on the AAWW YouTube channel on January 13 at 8:00pm ET. RSVP Here!  On Wednesday, January 13, we are partnering with A24 to celebrate Korean...

RSVP HERE! Join the Asian American Writers’ Workshop for our first event of the new year: a joint paperback launch of Gish Jen’s The Resisters and Meng Jin’s Little Gods. These two novels, released in early 2020, sketch out a dystopian near future that takes aim at several current catastrophes,...

Presented by the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, this new series, Radical Thinkers, places radical academics directly in conversation with trailblazing writers, poets, and artists, creating and nurturing two-way dialogues that will interrogate some of the most pressing issues facing Asian and Asian diasporic communities today. Featuring an interdisciplinary lineup of...

Author Kavita Das joins Jafreen Uddin, Executive Director of the Asian American Writers' Workshop in conversation about her book, Poignant Song: The Life and Music of Lakshmi Shankar. Shankar, who was Grammy-nominated, was the most prominent Indian female musician in the movement that brought Indian music to the West in...

Asian American Writers’ Workshop and Kay Ulanday Barrett present Mouth to Mouth: Open Mic and Showcase! Are you a writer? Come share your work at this virtual edition of our open mic, Mouth to Mouth, a bimonthly showcase dedicated to uplifting Queer, Non-Binary, and Transgender BIPOC poets. Hosted by Kay...

This December, we are launching a new virtual event series at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. Presented quarterly, these virtual “fireside chats” will feature a renowned Asian diasporic author in conversation with Jafreen Uddin, Executive Director of AAWW, sharing updates from the Workshop, and discussing AAWW from a writer’s perspective....

This fall, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop is celebrating the art of the essay. Featuring longtime poets and fiction writers with debut essay collections out this year, this conversation will take an intersectional look at Asian American identity, genre, gender, race, publishing, and the way the essay form allows writers...

The Asian American Writers’ Workshop is thrilled to celebrate the launch of Kazim Ali’s newest poetry collection, The Voice of Sheila Chandra. Following a reading from Ali’s innovative and musical new collection, he will be joined in conversation by Sheila Chandra and Rajiv Mohabir to discuss sound, silence, and embodied...

Mic Check! Are you a writer? Come share your work at our first virtual edition of our open mic, Mouth to Mouth. Hosted by AAWW’s fave poets Kay Ulanday Barrett and Ashna Ali, this edition of Mouth to Mouth features Donika Kelly, Golden, and Mejdulene B. Shomali. Mouth to Mouth...

This October, join us for a celebratory reading with the 2020 Open City Fellows. We’ll hear from Neighborhood Fellows Noah Flora, Soumya Shankar, Preeti Varathan, and Kate Zen, who have been documenting the pulse of metropolitan Asian America as it has being lived on the streets of New York right...

Tina Chang and Mira Jacob join the Asian American Writers’ Workshop to celebrate the paperback releases of their books Hybrida and Good Talk. Following a reading from their work, they will speak to the intersections of their experiences and creative practices, discussing race, motherhood, and hybrid storytelling structures. RSVP Here!...

AAWW is partnering with Film Forum to present a screening of AGGIE, and a discussion with Mahogany Browne, Adnan Khan, and Tanya Selvaratnam, moderated by Rachel Kuo. AGGIE is a feature-length documentary that explores the nexus of art, race, and justice through the story of art collector and philanthropist Agnes...

In collaboration with the Asian American Writers Workshop and Kundiman, Kaya Press brings acclaimed novelist Ed Lin together with pioneering YA author and co-founder of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop Marie Myung-Ok Lee (FINDING MY VOICE (Soho Teen, 2021 re-release) in conversation to celebrate the release of Ed Lin’s YA...

The Asian American Writers’ Workshop celebrates the publication of K-Ming Chang’s debut novel, Bestiary, with a reading and conversation with K-Ming and Franny Choi. Exploring the ways writing about girlhood can reinvent our definitions of community and lineage, and the ways we can grapple with and imagine beyond threats of...

Join the Asian American Writers' Workshop and Milkweed Editions to celebrate the publication day of World of Wonders with author Aimee Nezhukumatathil and special guests Patrick Rosal, Joseph Legaspi, Sarah Gambito, Oliver de la Paz, and Jon Pineda. This event will be presented virtually at 8:00pm ET/7:00pm CT.  The evening...