Poets & Writers Theater

In this virtual launch of Land of Big Numbers (Mariner Books, 2021) hosted by the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, author Te-Ping Chen reads from her debut story collection and speaks with Charles Yu about releasing a book during a pandemic. Land of Big Numbers is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Is this a voice that I can sustain throughout this novel? Will it continue to be, and also most importantly, can it sustain my curiosity?” In this AAWW virtual event, Chang-rae Lee reads from his novel My Year Abroad (Riverhead Books, 2021) and speaks with Bryan Washington about developing characters and publishing a book during a pandemic.

In this AAWW conversation moderated by Piyali Bhattacharya, writers with debut essay collections out this year, including Cathy Park Hong, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, and Sejal Shah, discuss Asian American identity, genre, gender, race, publishing, and the ways that the essay form has allowed writers to tell important stories. 

“I come from a place of not belonging and perhaps I started writing in order to make a place where I belonged in the world of novels or plays.” In this AAWW video, Yu Miri answers questions about her life and writing process, and reads from her novel Tokyo Ueno Station (Riverhead Books, 2020), translated from the Japanese by Morgan Giles, which won the 2020 National Book Award in translated literature.

In this Asian American Writers’ Workshop video, Arthur Sze reads and discusses the origin of his poem “Winter Stars,” featured in The Best American Poetry 2020 anthology guest edited by Paisley Rekdal. Sze won the 2019 National Book Award in poetry for his collection Sight Lines (Copper Canyon Press, 2019).