Best Asian American Writers Workshop Podcasts (2024)

1
Matthew Salesses Interviewed by May Ngo 50:18

3+ y ago50:18

50:18

We have a special interview with author Matthew Salesses, conducted by writer and anthropologist May Ngo back in February. Together, they dissect Matthew’s book Craft in the Real World, and have deep conversations about making writing workshops more equally accessible and how to think about one’s audience. They question the concept of agency, and h…

1
Crying in H Mart ft. Michelle Zauner & Hrishikesh Hirway 1:00:37

3+ y ago1:00:37

1:00:37

AAWW and indie bookstore Books Are Magic partned together to celebrate musician Michelle Zauner’s debut memoir, Crying In H Mart. Best known for her work as the musician Japanese Breakfast, Zauner’s memoir is an astonishing debut: a rich, intimate, and lyrical story about finding yourself, and the enduring power of food and family. Zauner is joined…

1
How Much of These Hills is Gold ft. C Pam Zhang, Karen Chee 1:02:46

3+ y ago1:02:46

1:02:46

AAWW celebrates the paperback launch of C Pam Zhang’s debut novel How Much of These Hills is Gold, which was longlisted for The Booker Prize, among other accolades. Since its publication last spring, this haunting, spare, and achingly beautiful novel has been widely praised for turning its unflinching gaze on the people and legends of the American …

1
Anti-Asian Violence and Black-Asian Solidarity Today 1:58:58

3+ y ago1:58:58

1:58:58

We're featuring audio from our recent event Anti-Asian Violence and Black-Asian Solidarity Today presented by Tamara K. Nopper. This lecture examines the merging of fighting “anti-Asian violence” with the promotion of “Black-Asian solidarity” in the context of COVID-19, and considers the work these narratives are doing and if they challenge or prom…

1
#WeToo: Journal of Asian American Studies 47:06

3+ y ago47:06

47:06

In time for the Association of Asian American Studies Conference that kicks off this week, we’re reposting an episode from the newly launched Journal of Asian American Studies podcast! We discuss a unique special issue of The Journal of Asian American Studies: #WeToo, a reader of Art, Poetry, Fiction, and Memoir, that seeks to answer the question, …

1
The City of Good Death ft. Priyanka Champaneri and Marjan Kamali 59:32

3+ y ago59:32

59:32

We're celebrating Priyanka Champaneri’s debut novel, The City of Good Death. Priyanka will be in conversation with special guest Marjan Kamali, author of The Stationery Shop. Winner of the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing, The City of Good Death is an immersive family saga exploring death, rebirth, and redemption set in India’s holy c…

1
Northern Light ft. Kazim Ali and Billy-Ray Belcourt 1:02:11

3+ y ago1:02:11

1:02:11

Acclaimed poet, novelist, and essayist Kazim Ali joins the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and Milkweed Editions to launch his new memoir, Northern Light: Power, Land, and the Memory of Water. Northern Light, a sensitive and elegantly structured exploration of land and power, is told through Ali’s recollections of his childhood in Manitoba, and th…

1
My Year Abroad ft. Chang-rae Lee and Bryan Washington 1:05:55

3+ y ago1:05:55

1:05:55

Join the Asian American Writers’ Workshop as we celebrate award-winning writer Chang-rae Lee’s electrifying new novel, My Year Abroad. A surprising, tender, and humorous work, My Year Abroad is a story unique to Chang-rae Lee’s immense talents as a writer, and explores the division between East and West, capitalism, mental health, mentorship, and m…

1
Brown Baby ft. Nikesh Shukla & Mira Jacob 59:18

3+ y ago59:18

59:18

AAWW is delighted to celebrate the launch of writer Nikesh Shukla’s new memoir, Brown Baby: A Memoir of Race, Family, and Home. An intimate look at love, grief, and fatherhood, Shukla’s memoir “bears witness to our turbulent times” (Bernardine Evaristo) with humor, honesty, and hope. Shukla is joined in conversation by Mira Jacob, author of Good Ta…

1
Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism 1:47:22

3+ y ago1:47:22

1:47:22

In the anthology Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism!, Daisy Hernandez and Bushra Rehman have collected a bold group of emerging writers whose prescient and intimate writing paints an expansive portrait of the experience of being women and femmes of color. The first edition of the anthology became an instant classic in 2002, and…

1
Radical Thinkers ft. Simon Han and Tahseen Shams 1:46:01

3+ y ago1:46:01

1:46:01

Our series Radical Thinkers places radical academics directly in conversation with trailblazing writers, poets, and artists, creating and nurturing two-way dialogues that will interrogate some of the most pressing issues facing Asian and Asian diasporic communities today. Featuring an interdisciplinary lineup of scholars and creatives, these unexpe…

1
Minari ft. Lee Isaac Chung and Min Jin lee 36:08

3+ y ago36:08

36:08

We're celebrating the release of Lee Isaac Chung's critically acclaimed film Minari, a tender portrait of a Korean-American family that moves to an Arkansas farm in search of their own American Dream. Today’s podcast features audio from our pre-release screening talkback with director Lee Isaac Chung and novelist Min Jin Lee.…

1
Land of Big Numbers ft. Te-Ping Chen and Charles Yu 1:01:53

3+ y ago1:01:53

1:01:53

Join the Asian American Writers’ Workshop for the official launch of Te-Ping Chen’s extraordinary debut short story collection, Land of Big Numbers. Assured and immersive, the stories in Land of Big Numbers move confidently between the United States and China, shifting from realism to magical realism, and forming intimate portraits that draw from C…

1
Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities 1:17:48

3+ y ago1:17:48

1:17:48

What are the radical possibilities of catalyzing cross-racial feminist solidarities, imaginations, and substantive realities? What revolutions must we create within ourselves to dismantle our prejudices, discrimination, and silences to create the world we want to see? Today’s podcast features audio from our recent event Siblings in Liberation, Blac…

1
Imagining Identity Across the Pond ft. Romalyn Ante, Will Harris, and April Yee 1:12:23

4y ago1:12:23

1:12:23

AAWW and London-based writer April Yee present a reading with two of the UK’s leading poets: Will Harris (RENDANG) and Romalyn Ante (Antiemetic for Homesickness). Following their reading, Will and Romalyn examine how Asian identity is constructed outside of the United States and discuss the ways British colonialism and capitalism continue to shape …

1
The Past is Not for Living In ft. Gish Jen and Meng Jin 1:02:31

4y ago1:02:31

1:02:31

Join the Asian American Writers’ Workshop for our first event of the new year: a joint paperback launch of Gish Jen’s The Resisters and Meng Jin’s Little Gods. These two novels, released in early 2020, sketch out a dystopian near future that takes aim at several current catastrophes, and examine history, absence, and the passage of time as filtered…

1
AGGIE ft. Mahogany L. Browne, Adnan Khan, Tanya Selvaratnam and Rachel Kuo 1:06:41

4y ago1:06:41

1:06:41

In November 2020 we co-hosted a screening with Film Forum of the documentary AGGIE, on the life of philanthropist Agnes Gund, founder of the Art For Justice Fund. Following the screening, we co-hosted a talkback with activists and Art For Justice grantees Adnan Khan and Mahogany Browne, and producer Tanya Selvaratnam, moderated by Rachel Kuo. Today…

1
The Life and Music of Lakshmi Shankar ft. Kavita Das, Jafreen Uddin 56:17

4y ago56:17

56:17

Author Kavita Das joins Jafreen Uddin, Executive Director of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop in conversation about her book, Poignant Song: The Life and Music of Lakshmi Shankar. Shankar, who was Grammy-nominated, was the most prominent Indian female musician in the movement that brought Indian music to the West in the late 1960’s. This event,…

1
Fireside Chat: R.O. Kwon with AAWW E.D. Jafreen Uddin 29:11

4y ago29:11

29:11

We're launching a new virtual event series at AAWW. Presented quarterly, these virtual “fireside chats” will feature a renowned Asian diasporic author in conversation with our Executive Director Jafreen Uddin, sharing updates from AAWW, and discussing AAWW from a writer’s perspective. This series will kick off with a conversation led by R. O. Kwon,…

1
Racing the Essay with Cathy Park Hong, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Sejal Shah, and Piyali Bhattacharya 1:15:46

4y ago1:15:46

1:15:46

This fall, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop is celebrating the art of the essay. Featuring longtime poets and fiction writers with debut essay collections out this year, this conversation will take an intersectional look at Asian American identity, genre, gender, race, publishing, and the way the essay form allows writers to dance, dodge, spar,…

1
Asian American Young Adult Fiction with Ed Lin, Marie Myung-Ok Lee, and Ruth Minah Buchwald 1:17:49

4y ago1:17:49

1:17:49

AAWW, Kundiman, & Kaya Press combine to bring acclaimed novelist Ed Lin together with pioneering YA author of FINDING MY VOICE and co-founder of AAWW Marie Myung-Ok Lee, in conversation to celebrate the release of Ed Lin’s YA debut, DAVID TUNG CAN’T HAVE A GIRLFRIEND UNTIL HE GETS INTO AN IVY LEAGUE COLLEGE (Kaya Press, October 2020). Moderated by …

1
The Voice of Sheila Chandra with Kazim Ali, Sheila Chandra, and Rajiv Mohabir 1:09:24

4y ago1:09:24

1:09:24

We're celebrating the launch of Kazim Ali’s newest poetry collection, The Voice of Sheila Chandra. Following a reading from Ali’s innovative and musical new collection, he will be joined in conversation by Sheila Chandra and Rajiv Mohabir to discuss sound, silence, and embodied art-making practice, as they reflect on Ali’s poetry, Chandra’s music, …

1
Shithole Country Clubs by Nina Sharma 42:59

4y ago42:59

42:59

We’re very excited to bring you an audio long read of “Shithole Country Clubs” an essay by Nina Sharma, recently published in The Margins. Named an Editor’s Pick at Longreads, “Shithole Country Clubs” is a hilarious and critical essay about Trump's New Jersey country club — the very golf club where he recently infected everyone with Covid-19 — and …

1
The Sweat of Love & the Fire of Truth with Akwaeke Emezi, Elizabeth Acevedo, & Sophia Hussain 1:06:00

4y ago1:06:00

1:06:00

The Asian American Writers’ Workshop is thrilled to celebrate the launch of Akwaeke Emezi’s new book THE DEATH OF VIVEK OJI and the recent release of Elizabeth Acevedo’s CLAP WHEN YOU LAND and WRITE YOURSELF A LANTERN: A JOURNAL INSPIRED BY THE POET X. The two authors read from their new works and have a moderated conversation with writer and Berke…

1
Good Talks with Tina Chang & Mira Jacob 1:07:59

4y ago1:07:59

1:07:59

Tina Chang and Mira Jacob join the Asian American Writers’ Workshop to celebrate the paperback releases of their books Hybrida and Good Talk. Following a reading from their work, they will speak to the intersections of their experiences and creative practices, discussing race, motherhood, and hybrid storytelling structures.…

1
Translating Letters for Black Lives - Asian Americana 1:08:03

4y ago1:08:03

1:08:03

On this episode we are excited to repost a recent episode of Asian Americana, a podcast about Asian American culture and history hosted and produced by Quincy Surasmith. Letters for Black Lives is an ongoing crowdsourced effort to create and translate multilingual and culturally-aware resources that open a space for families and communities to have…

1
Burial is Beginning: K-Ming Chang & Franny Choi 1:12:32

4y ago1:12:32

1:12:32

AAWW hosted the launch for K-Ming Chang’s debut novel, Bestiary, with a reading and conversation with K-Ming and Franny Choi. Exploring the ways writing about girlhood can reinvent our definitions of community and lineage, and the ways we can grapple with and imagine beyond threats of violence that often shape daughterhood, this conversation delves…

1
Global Chinatowns: Histories of Resistance & Community 1:08:38

4y ago1:08:38

1:08:38

Welcome to our Love Letter to Chinatown Episode! We’re happy to feature Mei Lum, Diane Wong, and Huiying B. Chan, the curators of Homeward Bound: Global Intimacies in Converging Chinatowns, hosted at the Pao Arts Center in Boston. The exhibit tells the stories of displacement, migration, resilience and grassroots organizing in Chinatowns around the…

1
AAWW Fave: You Don't Say No To Yuri Kochiyama (ft. Fred Ho, Diane C. Fujino, Baba Herman Ferguson, Esperanza Martell, Laura Whitehorn) 1:19:54

4+ y ago1:19:54

1:19:54

Today is the legendary activist Yuri Kochiyama’s birthday! We’re celebrating by revisiting one of our favorite episodes of AAWW Radio, You Don’t Say No to Yuri Kochiyama. In 2005, scholar and activist Diane C. Fujino released the biography Heartbeat of Struggle: the Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama. An in-depth examination of Kochiyama's life, …

1
AAWW Fave: Disability Justice (ft. Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha & Cyrée Jarelle Johnson) 1:29:39

4+ y ago1:29:39

1:29:39

One of our favorite episodes of AAWW Radio was from 2018 featuring Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice author Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha in conversation with poet Cyrée Jarelle Johnson, author of SLINGSHOT. Leah reads from her work and together they discuss meaningful inclusion of disability justice, Intersectional disability, and the nuan…

1
AAWW Fave: Breaking Caste (ft. Sujatha Gidla, Neel Mukherjee & Gaiutra Bahadur) 1:17:13

4+ y ago1:17:13

1:17:13

We’re bringing back one of our favorite events from 2018 called Breaking Caste, featuring Sujatha Gidla, Neel Mukherjee, and Gaiutra Bahadur. The episode features a wonderful conversation at the end about Dalit exclusion in the publishing industry, the connection between caste and women’s oppression, Dalit solidarity with Black Americans, and much …

1
AAWW Fave: I Can't Go On...I'll Go On ft. Patty Yumi Cottrell, Anelise Chen, Eugene Lim, & Lisa Chen 1:23:36

4+ y ago1:23:36

1:23:36

One of our favorite episodes is this reading and conversation from 2018 with brilliant experimental Asian American writers Anelise Chen, Patty Yumi Cottrell, and Eugene Lim. They read passages from their novels So Many Olympic Exertions, Sorry to Disrupt the Peace, and Dear Cyborgs, all of which have unique perceptions on living and surviving in th…

1
AAWW Fave: Migrant Father Fragment (ft. lê thị diễm thúy, M Zhang, & Hua Hsu) 1:42:44

4+ y ago1:42:44

1:42:44

Now that we’ve published over 50 episodes of AAWW Radio, we’re selecting a few of our favorites to republish for our new listeners. One of our earliest episodes is Migrant Father Fragment from 2017 featuring authors lê thị diễm thúy, Q.M. Zhang, and moderated by Hua Hsu. It features wonderful readings of their books The Gangster We Are All Looking …

1
Breaking into Speculative Fiction (PubCon 2016 Part 2) 50:19

4+ y ago50:19

50:19

This episode is the second episode of our podcast series diving back into our 2016 Publishing Conference, which we held at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn. The panel we’re sharing this week is titled “Breaking into Speculative Fiction”, featuring Jennifer Marie Brissett, author of the novel Elysium, and the upcoming 2020 novel Destroyer of Light, an…

1
Finding Your MFA (PubCon 2016 Part 1) 37:14

4+ y ago37:14

37:14

In this episode of AAWW Radio, we’re time traveling through our archive, bringing you panel discussions from our 2016 Publishing Conference, which we held at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn. The first panel we’re sharing this week is titled “What I Wish I Knew Before I Got My MFA”, featuring Naomi Jackson, author of The Star Side of Bird Hill and wh…

1
We're back!! 2:03

4+ y ago2:03

2:03

Since our last episode from October on poetry and disappearance in occupied Kashmir, a lot has happened. We've gotten through a long leadership transition and turned our focus inward, to care for AAWW. And earlier this year, we joyfully welcomed our new executive director, Jafreen Uddin. Our staff is currently working from home. We know that it is …

1
Occupied Kashmir: Poetry and Disappearance 55:15

5y ago55:15

55:15

How do you simultaneously disappear people and their hope? Can you keep that hope alive through writing? On this episode of AAWW Radio, we dive into the current blackout of Indian-occupied Kashmir, the history of enforced disappearances that haunts Kashmiris, and how political writing and poetry, like the work of poet Agha Shahid Ali, connects the …

1
Ep. 19: Remixing Guantanamo Bay (ft. Phil Metres & Ken Chen) 29:36

5y ago29:36

29:36

Today marks the 18th anniversary of 9/11. We're bringing back our episode from April 9th, 2018 called Remixing Guantanamo Bay where former AAWW Executive Director Ken Chen interviews experimental poet Philip Metres. Philip Metres is the author of Sand Opera, the poetry collection that uses redacted texts from Department of Defense manuals for tortu…

1
Womxn Writers on Motherhood (ft. Tina Chang, T Kira Madden, and Sahar Muradi) 1:22:50

5y ago1:22:50

1:22:50

Listen to writers Sahar Muradi, T Kira Madden, and Tina Chang read works about mothers and motherhood. Sahar Muradi shares poems about mental health during pregnancy, T Kira Madden reads a scene from her memoir, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls, in which her mother tends to her daughter’s lice-infested head, and Tina Chang read from her late…

1
Writing About Asian & Muslim American Neighborhoods 1:26:58

5+ y ago1:26:58

1:26:58

AAWW’s online magazine Open City documents metropolitan Asian America on the streets of New York City. Every year we grant two fellowships, the Neighborhoods fellowship and the Muslim Communities fellowship, to six writers to cover Asian American & Muslim American communities in New York City. We celebrated the end of our last cohort of Open City F…

1
Rewriting the Language of Incarceration (ft. Sarah Wang, Aviva Stahl, Nicole R. Fleetwood, Madhu Kaza, & Daniel A. Gross) 1:29:46

5+ y ago1:29:46

1:29:46

Is language adequate to describe the harsh reality of incarceration? Which words are used too often, too lazily, not often enough? We’ll hear from four people who are writers, journalists, and professors, approaching these subjects surrounding incarceration from different angles; Sarah Wang, Aviva Stahl, Nicole R. Fleetwood, Madhu Kaza. They read a…

1
The Collected Schizophrenias (ft. Esmé Weijun Wang & Larissa Pham) 1:00:35

5+ y ago1:00:35

1:00:35

We hosted a reading and conversation with novelist Esmé Weijun Wang, author of the New York Times-bestselling new essay collection The Collected Schizophrenias. She was named one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists and has won a Whiting Award. The Collected Schizophrenias, which won the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize, is, as NPR writes, “riveting,…

1
Poetry Vs. Community Vs. History 1:12:11

5+ y ago1:12:11

1:12:11

For Asian American poets, what is the relationship between bearing witness to history and giving voice to marginalized communities? At the 2019 AWP Conference and Bookfair held in Portland in March, AAWW hosted a panel titled Poets vs. Community vs. History, moderated by Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello with E.J. Koh, Yanyi, Emily Jungmin Yoon, & Moni…

1
Vietnamese Ghost Stories (ft. Thanhha Lai, Vu Tran, Violet Kupersmith, & Lawrence-Minh Bùi Davis) 33:51

5+ y ago33:51

33:51

In March, we co-presented a series of conversations with DVAN, the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network. For this podcast we’ll be listening to an introduction by DVAN founder and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Sympathizer Viet Than Nguyen. Following this is a conversation around the concept of Vietnamese ghost stories moderated by …

1
Pachinko (ft. Min Jin Lee & Ken Chen) 1:16:45

5+ y ago1:16:45

1:16:45

We're featuring audio from a 2017 event collaboration with the Tenement Museum. We celebrated the launch of author Min Jin Lee’s second novel Pachinko, which was a New York Times Notable Book of 2017 and National Book Award Finalist. Pachinko follows one Korean family through generations. The story begins in Korea in the early 1900s and then moves …

1
Insurrecto & Filipinx Resistance ft. Gina Apostol & Sabina Murray 1:26:43

5+ y ago1:26:43

1:26:43

Gina Apostol’s latest work of fiction, Insurrecto, is a tour de force about about the Philippines’ past and present told through rivaling scripts from an American filmmaker and her Filipino translator. The book was one of the New York Times’ Editor’s Choices for 2018 and won comparisons to Nabokov and Borges for its kaleidoscopic structure. With he…

1
Subjects of Interest (ft. Kamila Shamsie, Hirsh Sawhney, & Rozina Ali) 1:13:01

5+ y ago1:13:01

1:13:01

In 2017, we hosted novelists Kamila Shamsie and Hirsh Sawhney, both writers who released new novels about South Asian families fractured in the diaspora. Kamila Shamsie’s novel Home Fire takes Sophocles’s classic tragedy Antigone as the starting point for her novel about political tensions in the War on Terror and the way it impacts Muslim families…

1
Queer South Asian Literature (ft. SJ Sindu, Rahul Mehta, & Sreshtha Sen) 1:15:41

6y ago1:15:41

1:15:41

We're featuring writers Rahul Mehta and SJ Sindu who read from debut novels No Other World and Marriage of a Thousand Lies featuring complex queer South Asian characters. They have a conversation with writer and Shoreline Review editor Sreshtha Sen about writing transnational narratives, how cultural trauma affects what we write, and resisting the …

1
You Don't Say No To Yuri Kochiyama (ft. Fred Ho, Diane C. Fujino, Baba Herman Ferguson, Esperanza Martell, Laura Whitehorn) 1:20:24

6y ago1:20:24

1:20:24

We’re reaching back over a decade into our archives to 2005, when Diane C. Fujino released Yuri Kochiyama's biography Heartbeat of Struggle. To celebrate the book's release, activist and saxophonist Fred Ho invited Yuri's friends & contemporaries Baba Herman Ferguson, Esperanza Martell, & Laura Whitehorn to our space to speak on Yuri Kochiyama's le…

1
Speaking Truth to Power (ft. Raissa Robles, Raad Rahman, Tenzin Dickie & Jeremy Tiang) 1:26:16

6y ago1:26:16

1:26:16

How is resistance possible when reality itself is obscured? In an era of "fake news" and more facts than anyone could hope to grasp, authoritarians rely on this uncertainty to consolidate their hold on power. This episode we're featuring audio from our 2017 event Speaking Truth to Power. Legendary journalist Raissa Robles joins us from the Philippi…

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Asian American Writers Workshop Podcasts

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Quick Reference Guide