Rajiv Mohabir, author of Antiman: A Hybrid Memoir and winner of the 2019 Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing, will be joining two panels at the 2022 AWP Conference & Bookfair.
In addition to offering an in-person event schedule in Philadelphia from March 23-26, 2022, AWP will incorporate a virtual component and offer an array of prerecorded virtual events. A virtual-only registration will be available for #AWP22 at a reduced registration rate. The in-person registration will include all in-person and virtual programming.
Teaching & Writing Asian America in the CW Classroom
What does it mean to teach CW as a minority instructor? In the age of “Asian Hate,” how can we as Asian Americans specifically incorporate ourselves into courses called simply “Workshop,” as if to imply an ossified canon? In these classrooms that have historically ignored us, how can we be sensitive workshop guides to both minority and majority community students while still taking care of ourselves? Students, how can you ask for CW instruction that leaves you feeling included and cared for?
When: March 25 at 10:35am to 11:50am EST
Where: 113A, Pennsylvania Convention Center, 100 Level & Online, via Association of Writers & Writing Programs
Moderators:
Rajiv Mohabir, poet and translator, translated I Even Regret Night (PEN/Heim Award) and is the author of The Cowherd's Son and The Taxidermist's Cut. He is an assistant professor of poetry at Auburn University's creative writing program.
Piyali Bhattacharya is editor of the collection Good Girls Marry Doctors. Her short stories and essays have appeared in Ploughshares and the New York Times. Her novel-in-progress has been supported by Hedgebrook and VCCA. She is artist-in-residence at UPenn, where she teaches fiction and nonfiction.
Jane Wong is the author of How to Not Be Afraid of Everything and Overpour. She is an associate professor of creative writing at Western Washington University.
Alexandra Chang
Desi Mythpunk: Indian Mythologies in Futurist Writing by South Asian Authors
This panel explores how and why South Asian authors employ myths in their poetry, graphic novels, and more. Authors discuss the refashioning of myths as a world-making force that may cultivate a sense of cultural heritage, subvert orientalist stereotypes, and bring alternative futures into being.
When: March 25 at 12:10pm to 1:10pm EST
Where: Online, via Association of Writers & Writing Programs
Moderators:
Rajiv Mohabir, poet and translator, translated I Even Regret Night (PEN/Heim Award) and is the author of The Cowherd's Son and The Taxidermist's Cut. He is an assistant professor of poetry at Auburn University's creative writing program.
Vidhu Aggarwal's book of poems, The Trouble with Humpadori, takes mobile forms in video, comics, and performance. She teaches postcolonial/transnational literatures and creative writing at Rollins College.
Bishakh Som is an Indian American trans femme visual artist. Her graphic novel Apsara Engine was the winner of a 2020 Los Angeles Times Book Prize and a 2020 Lambda Literary Award for Best LGBTQ Comic. Her graphic memoir Spellbound is also a Lambda finalist.
Hari Alluri is the author of The Flayed City and an editor at Locked Horn Press. A winner of the 2020 Leonard A. Slade, Jr. Poetry Fellowship, he has received grants from the BC Arts Council and Canada Council of the Arts and fellowships from VONA/Voices and Las Dos Brujas writers workshops.
SJ Sindu is the author of Blue-Skinned Gods and Marriage of a Thousand Lies, which won a Publishing Triangle Award and was an ALA Stonewall Honor Book and a Lambda Literary Award finalist. She is an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Toronto.