Poets & Writers Theater

In this 2017 Asian American Writers’ Workshop event, Esther Lin reads her poem “I See Her Best,” which appears in her debut collection, Cold Thief Place (Alice James Books, 2025). Lin’s book is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this event presented by the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and Kundiman, writers Hannah Bae, Jen Lue, Gina Chung, and Rajat Singh read from their work and participate in a conversation moderated by Thuy Phan, regional cochair of Kundiman Northeast.

This virtual round-robin reading of new Asian American fiction features Nawaaz Ahmed, author of Radiant Fugitives (Counterpoint, 2021), Jackson Bliss, author Amnesia of June Bugs (7.13 Books, 2022), Melissa Chadburn, author of A Tiny Upward Shove (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022), Tracey Lien, author of All That’s Left Unsaid (HarperCollins, 2022), and Soon Wiley, author of When We Fell Apart (Dutton Books, 2022). The event was hosted by the Center for Fiction and presented in partnership with the Asian American Writers’ Workshop.

In this AAWW conversation moderated by Piyali Bhattacharya, writers with debut essay collections recently published, 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. 

“Didn’t they know, low in their bones, that as long as they moved and the land unfurled, that as long as they searched, they would forever be searchers and never quite lost?” reads C Pam Zhang from her debut novel, How Much of These Hills Is Gold (Riverhead Books, 2020), in this conversation with writer and comedian Karen Chee hosted by the Asian American Writers’ Workshop.

“It’s a book about being present to the world and accepting the complexity of the world.” In this virtual event hosted by the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Larissa Pham speaks about her new book, Pop Song: Adventures in Art and Intimacy (Catapult, 2021), and the subjects addressed in her essays, including relationships and the differences of expression through visual art and writing, in a conversation with R. O. Kwon.

Author, poet, and translator Rajiv Mohabir and scholar Kadji Amin speak on the topics of queer theory and scholarship, the process of writing creative nonfiction and poetry, and the term “Asian American” in this virtual conversation for the Radical Thinkers series hosted by the Asian American Writers’ Workshop.

“There’s a sister who works so hard she never talks. / A sister who screams when she hears dogs bark.” Monica Sok reads “Sestina” from her debut poetry collection, A Nail the Evening Hangs On (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), for Women Warriors: A Solidarity Reading, presented by the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, which featured over forty Asian American women writers. 

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.

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).

In this installment of the AAWW at Home series, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, author of the novel Starling Days (Overlook Press, 2020), talks about how she’s been occupied during the coronavirus pandemic lockdown and reads from Alexander Chee’s essay collection, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel (Mariner Books, 2018). 

“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.

"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.

“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.

“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.