A conversation with Julie Otsuka

A conversation with Weike Wang about humor, Joan is Okay, and writing.

A collage of conversations between Shruti Swamy and Meng Jin

A conversation with the author of Disorientation.

A conversation with Randa Jarrar

The stories in this folio piece together alternate, speculative histories that reflect distinctly queer modes of life: often without a clear resolution, a “moral,” or a sense of “straight” logic

“The narrative that is built around a particular moment eventually buries the moment itself.”

“Together we are as mighty as our ancestors up from the dead.”

On Chinatowns around the world, writing about teen girlhood, and making music.

“I think that sensual pleasure is at the heart of what I find to be exciting about writing.”

An activist, educator, and transnational feminist, Dr. Margo Okazawa-Rey has dedicated her life to challenging systems of oppression.

How can Black and Asian American feminists engage in a critical dialogue on the impacts of COVID-19 in their respective communities? What can we learn from the long history of solidarity between our communities?

“As I was writing these poems, I felt that friendship was a constant thing I was returning to.”

The author of Days of Distraction on microaggressions in fiction and writing confrontation through fragments

The author of The Tenth Muse talks about writing about women intellectuals, Korean myths, and writing against Western narrative conventions.

The author of If You See Me Dont Say Hi discusses the draw of the short story, writing with new vocabularies of race, and the immigrant communities of the Midwest.

The author of Miracle Creek on courtroom dramas, the unrealistic expectations placed on mothers, and writing an immigrant whodunnit

The author talks her long career as a novelist, her obsession with adolescence, and the disruptive process of writing her latest novel, Trust Exercise.

“Magic and writing, it’s all misdirection, defamiliarization, and at its best, the ahhhhh moment of surprise.”

“To occupy this space, this body, is disorienting and at times disturbing, because you are never quite sure whose gaze truly sees you beyond the projections and assumptions and desires.”

The author of An Ocean of Minutes talks the terror of time travel, immigrant fiction, and capturing grief in writing.

David Palumbo-Liu talks with Dao Strom about the mythologies of Vietnam, folk music’s political history, and making space for empathy in writing.

“When people ask me how much of the book is autobiographical, I often tell them, ‘Well, you know the story where the man turns into a suitcase? That’s my uncle.'”

The author of Half Gods talks self-orientalism, writing in the diaspora, and the art of the short story.

Marilyn Chin talks bad girl haikus, pissing off your ancestors, and her new career-spanning collection, A Portrait of the Self as Nation.

“There is something inherently powerful in adoptees speaking up and telling our own stories. And I will always believe that to be true.”

The poets talk creative collaboration, gardening, epistolary poetry, and the intimacy of sentences.

Min Jin Lee talks with Lillian Li about researching and revising a novel, her relationship to her readership, and what’s next in line after Pachinko.

Lillian Li talks about immigrant sacrifice, humor, learning from Asian American literature, and her debut novel, Number One Chinese Restaurant.

The author of Carceral Capitalism talks predictive policing, the limits of appeals to innocence, and the price of prisons.

The artist and writer behind South/South talks experiments in social fiction, sharing the secrets of strangers, and writing fictional telegrams by Luis Buñuel.

The author of America is Not the Heart talks commemorating the mundane in fiction, writing about working class queer women, and re-claiming the Bay Area in her novel.

Journalist Jennifer Crandall is re-claiming Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” through the voices and stories of the South.

The author of Though I Get Home talks writing against censorship, non-traditional “immigrant stories,” and writing a novel to think through her life.

The Hong Kong poet talks the Umbrella movement, being an outsider and an insider in Hong Kong, and how she translates the world.

Writers Yang Huang and Kirstin Chen talk histories of the Cultural revolution, betrayal, and the importance of craft

The American War author and journalist talks climate change fiction, writing in the age of Trump, and reinventing America in his novel.

The author of Everything Here is Beautiful speaks about sisterhood, refusing categorization, and writing about mental health.

The author of Chemistry talks mad scientists, model minority, and defending your imagination as a writer of color.

Poet Chen Chen talks finding your family, queer Asian American poetry, and Journey to the West.

The author of A Good Country talks about the final novel in her Kurdish trilogy, tribal longing, and the work that entertaining literature does

The author of How I Became a North Korean speaks about the power of fiction to give clarity to the world.

An interview with the Muslim American writer and activist about how Trump has unintentionally made America great

‘The Daily Show’ correspondent Hasan Minhaj talks to Ashok Kondabolu about his new one-man show, ‘Homecoming King,’ running away from John Kasich, and the role of comedians in the age of Trump.

‘Imagination can make things more real than they would be if they were just reported from real life’—the author of In the Country speaks on writing stories of south-south migration and when not to be faithful to a map.

An interview with Akhil Sharma, author of Family Life, on how to write a novel that has no plot, literary modernism’s influence, and remembering India

With the novelist who long thought she was a Korean American impostor

The author of Picking Bones from Ash on Japanese Buddhism, tsunami survivors, and her trip into the “exclusion zone”

An interview with the exiled Chinese poet on writing from prison, false patriotism, and the responsibility of intellectuals

An interview with author Phong Nguyen on his latest book, Pages from the Textbook of Alternate History

Notes for a hypothetical interview with the author re: Taipei, living in the present, memory, moral responsibility, technology, zen, etc.

A native son of Chinatown and the Lower East Side, the author of the Detective Jack Yu series makes a mean pitcher of Bloody Mary.

Asian American Writers’ Workshop cofounder Marie Myung-Ok Lee kicks off our new weekly Q&A series with writers.

Actor, writer, and father Randall Park shares an hour on the phone with Ashok Kondabolu, recalling his childhood in LA and how he stumbled into acting.