Asian American Writers' Workshop

02/07/2025

"The first was a tiny, perfectly round, half-centimeter-wide peephole through my left earlobe that my mom discovered while braiding my hair before school one morning."

Read this week's piece, "Unholy" by Ashley D'Souza, in .
🕳️ https://aaww.org/unholy/

02/05/2025

TOMORROW, join us for a celebration of Nayantara Roy's debut, THE MAGNIFICENT RUINS. ✨🏰 Tara will be in conversation with Nina Sharma, and the evening will feature stand up and musical performances by Aditi Misra, Shayon Maitra, & Priya Roy!

Learn more & RSVP:

Join AAWW in-person and online for a celebration of Nayantara Roy’s The Magnificent Ruins, featuring Nina Sharma, Aditi Misra, Shayon Maitra, and Priya Roy!

02/05/2025

Introducing THE SOURCE💡🌱, a brand-new podcast miniseries produced by AAWW, hosted by luminous poets Ashna Ali and Divya Victor! We’re so excited and grateful to our lineup of featured guests, Rajiv Mohabir, Zaina Alsous, Hala Alyan, Douglas Kearney, and José Olivarez. 🤲❤️‍🔥

We’re thrilled for this project to come to life. Coming VERY SOON to all platforms where you listen to podcasts!!

02/05/2025

"Choi has surgically stretched the past to the point that it is a malleable medium."

In the wake of political and climate change, Asa Drake turns to Franny Choi's poetry collection THE WORLD KEEPS ENDING, AND THE WORLD GOES ON. 🌏

New in : https://aaww.org/the-end-of-the-world-isnt-new-and-neither-is-the-work-ahead-of-us/

02/04/2025

Don't miss the U.S. theatrical premiere of Alan Zhang's THIS WOMAN at the Metrograph tonight, with screenings tomorrow as well! 🌟🎥

Get tickets:

Feminist activist and multihyphenate artist Zhang’s directorial debut is a raw, often revelatory docufiction experiment that follows Beibei (Li…

02/04/2025

"The way sunsets swiftly vanish—
you leave me gutted."

Read this week's piece, "21 Emotions for my Catalyst" by Ha Kiet Chau, in .
🌅 https://aaww.org/21-emotions-for-my-catalyst/

02/03/2025

“In other words, Palestine is not a test for, say, a once-again revolutionary Asian American politics but rather, as [historian Sherene] Seikaly puts it, a ‘shared possibility across difference.’”

New in , an essay by Najwa Mayer and Randa Tawil on the foundational role of Palestinian liberation and thought in Asian American politics—and how we must reckon with modern Zionism both outside and within our own structures and communities. 🍉

🌟 https://aaww.org/palestine-and-the-asian-american-question/

01/29/2025

“my auntie braids a plait of dough/ and we want for nothing.” 🐍❤️‍🔥🧧 Today we’re sharing .danlau’s poem “New Year’s Morning,” published in on February 1, 2022. May we have auspicious starts to the Year of the Snake, whether it be through new curiosities or the shedding of old skins. ✨ Read the poem online: https://aaww.org/new-years-morning-dan-lau/.

01/29/2025

Join Hiromi Ito, one of Japan’s most distinguished poets, and Kimiko Hahn for a reading & discussion on the blending of poetry and essay, the evolution of poetic forms, and their vision for the future of Zuihitsu, hosted by Interface Poetry on February 1! The event is virtual and bilingual!

🦋

Date: February １, 2025　Time: 08:00 p.m. (EST)　Join us for PoetryLiveExchange Vol.1

01/28/2025

"Your origin/ is like food, and food

mutates through cultural/ transmission."

Read this week's Poetry Tuesday piece, "Baynte Nuybe (Veinte y Nueve)" by Rex Ybañez, in . 🔪 https://aaww.org/baynte-nuybe-veinte-y-nueve/

01/27/2025

Join us on Thursday, February 6, for a celebration of ’s moving debut, THE MAGNIFICENT RUINS. ✨ Nayantara will be in conversation with , and the evening will feature performances by Aditi Misra, Shayon Maitra, and ! RSVP at aaww.org/events 🏰

01/24/2025

We’re so excited for the return of our fortnightly , starting with Pegah Ouji’s “The World According to My Grandmother.” 🍃💞 Read it in at aaww.org/the-margins/.

Our Flash Fiction series is edited by and , and can be found at aaww.org/project/flash-fiction/. 🌟

01/24/2025

"Do we need a man? I want to ask her, but her eyes are bright like poppies in summer heat."

We're so excited for the return of , starting with "The World According to my grandmother" by Pegah Ouji. 🌱

Read it in : https://aaww.org/the-world-according-to-my-grandmother/

01/23/2025

Thank you to everyone who joined us last week for our first event of the year, BEYOND OWNERSHIP with and , an illuminating and essential conversation on land ownership, housing, and equity. Audrea and Amy read from their own incredible works observing the systems built around, and our relation to, property—FREE THE LAND and PROPERTY JOURNAL, respectively. 🌅 Stay tuned for more upcoming events this winter!

01/21/2025

Announcing ’ nominees for Best Literary Translations 2026, an annual anthology by , guest edited this year by Arthur Sze. Good luck to all the nominated translators and writers!

The pieces nominated are:

🌟 NONFICTION
- “المنفى المتدرج | The Gradual Exile” by Mahmoud Darwish, translated from Arabic by Abdelrahman ElGendy
- “수갑, 그 차가운 기억 | Handcuffs, a Frosty Memory” by Jung-rim Choi, translated from Korean by Peace Pyunghwa Lee

🎀 POETRY
- “Sagkód | Thereafter” by Kristian Sendon Cordero, translated from Bikol by Bennard Cariño Fajardo
- “보고 싶은 친구에게 | To a Friend I Miss” by Shin Hae-uk, translated from Korean by Spencer Lee-Lenfield

01/21/2025

"Developers measured cane fields we gazed upon from backs of trucks as if/ our kingdom that could never be changed."

Read two poems by Lark Omura, “Welcome to Pāʻia” and “Lei La the canoe speaks,” in ’ section. 🌺

🛶 https://aaww.org/two-poems-by-lark-omura/

01/14/2025

Today we’re sharing the poem “Love Letter to the Eve of the End of the World” by , first published in ’ Climate notebook in March 2023, featuring art by .

As the fires in Altadena and Los Angeles rage on and impacted communities are held together by the tireless work of activists, organizers, and local orgs, we offer and echo George’s words: “the only way I can love/ The whole of us is to stare into the center of our unmaking/ & learn to love the worlds made possible in our own fall.”

May we continue to “imagine new collectives” on “this eve of apocalypse.” ❤️‍🩹 Resources to mutual aids and donation links shared in our stories & will continue to be updated. Read the full piece at https://aaww.org/love-letter-to-the-eve-of-the-end-of-the-world/. 🌏

01/14/2025

“The only/ whole things left are the tangled gold necklaces knotted/ with grief, chains my mother will not break.”

Read this week’s piece, “Echo Body” by Jenne Hsien Patrick, in .
🌟 https://aaww.org/echo-body/