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“We would try by any means / To reach the limits of ourselves, to reach beyond ourselves, / To let go the means, to wake.” In the first installment of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop’s AAWW at Home series in which writers share how they have been spending their time during the coronavirus pandemic, Celeste Ng talks about her current activities and concerns, and reads Muriel Rukeyser’s “Poem” from The Speed of Darkness (Vintage Books, 1968).
In this Asian American Writers’ Workshop video, Yanyi celebrates the launch of his debut collection, The Year of Blue Water (Yale University Press, 2019), with readings by poets Wo Chan, Erica Hunt, and Monica Youn. Yanyi is featured in “Poetic Lenses: Our Fifteenth Annual Look at Debut Poetry” in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“When the water in my heart falls, I hold on to a memory…” Monica Sok reads her poem “I Am Rachana” from her chapbook, Year Zero (Poetry Society of America, 2016), at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop in 2016. Sok is one of the finalists for the 2019 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowships.
Jess Rizkallah reads her poem “tbh i’ve got more things to say about hair than i have hair” at an event for the Asian American Writers’ Workshop in New York City. Rizkallah’s debut collection, the magic my body becomes (University of Arkansas Press, 2017), is the inaugural winner of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize.
As part of the Singapore Literature Festival in New York City, Alfian Sa’at, Ovidia Yu, Naomi Jackson, and Jason Koo read from their work and discuss the invisibilities and visibilities of race and gender at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop.
“I feel like I must muzzle myself, / I told my psychiatrist. / ‘So you feel dangerous?’ she said. / Yes. / ‘So you feel like a threat?’ / Yes. / Why was I so surprised to hear it?” At the Asian American Writers' Workshop, Solmaz Sharif reads from her debut poetry collection, Look (Graywolf Press, 2016), which is longlisted for the 2016 National Book Award in poetry. Sharif is joined by poets Rickey Laurentiis, Mariam Ghani, and Cathy Park Hong, who they read her work and their own, and join in a discussion.
"Be sure to have at least one good Muslim character, preferably one good for each bad one. People will then say your film or book is 'balanced...'" Moustafa Bayoumi reads aloud eleven tongue-in-cheek rules for writing Muslim characters from his newest book, This Muslim American Life: Dispatches from the War on Terror (NYU Press 2015), at an event at the Asian American Writers' Workshop in New York City.
"I liked that ending and I held onto it through draft after draft.... You know we talk about 'kill your darlings' a lot as writers but this was one darling that I wanted to hold on to, and I knew that it was the right thing." Matthew Salesses, author of The Hundred-Year Flood (Little A, 2015), talks about struggling with writing the end of his novel, and knowing when to keep your darlings.
“There is a kind of formlessness to poetry, as much as everyone is obsessed with form.” Ken Chen, the executive director of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, talks about his personal relationship to poetry in a discussion at the Academy of American Poets’ 2013 Poets Forum. Chen is featured in “AAWW Continues the Conversation” by Arvin Temkar in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
"When we think of Asian American literature... my hope is that you have makers, but then you have people that are there to receive it." Sarah Gambito talks with Anna Alves, Melissa R. Sipin, and Jessica Hagedorn about the growing audience for Filipino American literature at the launch party for Kuwento: Lost Things (Carayan Press, 2015), a new anthology of Filipino myths, at the Asian American Writers' Workshop in New York City.
