Pulitzer Prize winner and author of five books, including the critically acclaimed, New York Times bestseller: Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine and the Miracle That Set Them Free.
Hector will be in conversation with Roberto Lovato.
Award-winning poet, writer, editor, and critic, and author of OBIT, winner of the the PEN Voelcker Award, and Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief, a TIME, Lithub, and NPR most anticipated book of 2021.
Victoria will be in conversation with Maw Shein Win.
Award-winning author and filmmaker and the creator of the novel Queen Sugar, which inspired the drama directed by Ava DuVernay now beginning its 7th season on the Oprah Winfrey Network.
Natalie will be in conversation with Faith Adiele.
Writer and the author of the award-winning novel Fruit of the Drunken Tree and the 2022 memoir The Man Who Could Move Clouds, named a "Most Anticipated Book of the Year" by Time, Today, Entertainment Weekly, Bustle, Ms. Magazine, the Seattle Times, Electric Literature, and more.
Ingrid will be in conversation with Tonya Foster.
The Opening Session will feature Marie Myung-Ok Lee, whose novel, The Evening Hero, was just published with Simon & Schuster in Summer 2022 and was a Good Morning America Book Club "Buzz" book pick. Her young adult novel, Finding My Voice, is considered to be the first contemporary-set YA with an Asian protagonist. She has written for The New York Times, Slate, The Guardian, The Nation, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, Poets & Writers, The Guardian, and Salon. She teaches fiction at Columbia where she is Writer in Residence. The essay series she did for Slate on treating her son with autism with cannabis was featured in Dr. Sanjay Gupta's CNN series, "Weed" and she is a cofounder and former board president of the Asian American Writers' Workshop.
Black author LISA GRAY tackles issues of race and class while highlighting the intersections and spaces between identities and groups. Gray was appointed the Executive Director for the Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation (VONA), the foremost multi-genre writing program for writers of color. Gray has won the Edgar Award for her short story "The Queen of Secrets" in the anthology New Haven Noir and writes stories about being a Black woman in America, a place that does not always value women or Blackness. Gray's work also appears in As Us Literary Journal, Mission at Tenth among others. She holds and M.F.A. from Mills College and has taught at Mills College, The Writers Grotto, Rooted & Written, and Liminal Writing Space. She founded Our Voices, Our Stories SF in 2015 to elevate and amplify the voices and work of women writers of color.
Asian American author RITA CHANG-EPPIG received her MFA in fiction from NYU. Her novel about the infamous pirate queen of the South China Sea is forthcoming in 2023 from Bloomsbury. Her stories have appeared in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Conjunctions, Clarkesworld, The Rumpus, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Best American Short Stories 2021, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships from the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center, the Writers Grotto, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies at San Jose State University. She is represented by Michelle Brower at Trellis Literary Management.
Black author TONYA M. FOSTER was awarded a Harvard Radcliffe Fellowship and was named the George and Judy Marcus Endowed Chair in the Creative Writing department of San Francisco State University. Foster is the author of A Swarm of Bees in High Court, and the bilingual chapbook La Grammaire des Os; A History of the Bitch (Sputnik and Fizzle, forthcoming 2020); and co-editor of Third Mind: Creative Writing through Visual Art. Her writing and research focus on ideas of place and emplacement, and on intersections between the visual and the written. Her recent collections are a double-sided cross-genre collection on New Orleans—A Mathematics of Chaos ::Thingification (Ugly Presse 2021); and Monkey Talk, a cross-genre series about race, paranoia, aesthetics, and surveillance, the development of which is supported by a 2020 grant from the Creative Capital Foundation.
Brazilian screenwriter, producer and filmmaker XANDRA CASTLETON's scripts have served as the basis for an award-winning documentary and television and narrative film projects, among them an Emmy Award-winning profile of John Waters. Her films have premiered at festivals such as Sundance, Tribeca, AFI, and Rotterdam, while her feature dramatic comedy, Full Grown Men, was the winner of the 2007 Sundance Channel Audience Award prior to a critically successful theatrical release by Emerging Pictures. Xandra was the co-creator and writer of the scripted television documentary Stand Up Planet, starring Hasan Minhaj of The Daily Show.
LYZETTE WANZER is a San Francisco writer, editor, and writing workshop instructor. She received her MFA in Fiction from Mills College. A flash fiction connoisseur and essay aficionado, her work has appeared in over twenty-five literary journals, magazines, books, and newspapers. Trauma, Tresses, & Truth: Untangling Our Hair Through Personal Narrative, is due out from Chicago Review Press in Fall 2022. The Independent Publishers Group has already selected the title as one of its Top-Shelf Picks for the Fall season. Lyzette is a contributor to Lyric Essay As Resistance: Truth From the Margins (Wayne State University Press 2022), Civil Liberties United: Diverse Voices from the San Francisco Bay Area (Pease Press 2019), and the multi-award-winning The Chalk Circle: Intercultural Prizewinning Essays (Wyatt-MacKenzie 2012).
Asian American writer and filmmaker CELESTE CHAN founded and directed Queer Rebels (a queer and trans people of color arts project), created and curated experimental films, joined Foglifter Literary Journal as an editor and board member, and toured with legendary feminist road show, Sister Spit. Her writing can be found in The Rumpus, cream city review’s genrequeer folio, Gertrude, Citron Review, and elsewhere.
JD BELTRAN is an award-winning artist, filmmaker, designer, journalist, writer, and cultural strategist. She has written columns on art & culture for the Huffington Post and SFGate.com, and currently writes for Visual Art Source. She's achieved grants from Artadia, the MIT Media Lab, the San Francisco Arts Commission, Stochastic Labs, and Ars Electronica. She also was awarded a Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Fellowship, and residencies at Skowhegan, the Pilchuck School, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Stochastic Labs, and the Lucas Artists Residency at Montalvo Arts Center. She serves as a Commissioner on the San Francisco Arts Commission (since 2009), and was appointed as its President for 8 years, from 2011 to 2018. Beltran founded the non-profit Center for Creative Sustainability, which cultivates and implements groundbreaking creative collaborations, projects, initiatives, and legislation towards sustainability in the arts, the environment, and our society.
Burmese American poet MAW SHEIN WIN's most recent full-length collection is Storage Unit for the Spirit House (Omnidawn, 2020) which was nominated for the Northern California Book Award in Poetry, longlisted for the PEN America Open Book Award, and shortlisted for the California Independent Booksellers Alliance's Golden Poppy Award for Poetry.
Filipino American author, musician and actor DOMINIC LIM’s stories have appeared in The Jellyfish Review, Ghost Parachute, and Solstice Literary Magazine (as a finalist for their Annual Fiction Contest). He is a co-host of the long-running Babylon Salon reading and performance series in San Francisco. Dominic holds a Master of Music from
Filipino American author, musician and actor DOMINIC LIM’s stories have appeared in The Jellyfish Review, Ghost Parachute, and Solstice Literary Magazine (as a finalist for their Annual Fiction Contest). He is a co-host of the long-running Babylon Salon reading and performance series in San Francisco. Dominic holds a Master of Music from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, is an alum of Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music, and has sung with numerous professional early music and choral ensembles.
Korean American writer A.H. KIM, a lawyer-turned-author educated at Harvard College and Berkeley Law School, created A Good Family, a compelling debut novel inspired by her personal experience supporting her brother and his young children while his wife was serving a nearly eight-year prison term at Alderson Federal Prison Camp. A “lively
Korean American writer A.H. KIM, a lawyer-turned-author educated at Harvard College and Berkeley Law School, created A Good Family, a compelling debut novel inspired by her personal experience supporting her brother and his young children while his wife was serving a nearly eight-year prison term at Alderson Federal Prison Camp. A “lively suspense diversion that provides the eternally welcome assurance that nobody has it all, at least not forever,” wrote NPR book critic Maureen Corrigan in the Washington Post.
Asian American author GRACE LOH PRASAD received her MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College and is an alumna of Tin House and VONA. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, Longreads, Artsy, Hyperallergic, Catapult, Jellyfish Review, KHÔRA, and elsewhere. Grace is a member of The Writers Grotto and Seventeen Syllables, an AAPI writers collective. Follow her on Twitter @GraceLP.
FAITH ADIELE is author of Meeting Faith, a memoir about becoming Thailand’s first Black Buddhist nun that won the PEN Open Book Award, and The Nigerian Nordic Girl’s Guide to Lady Problems, a digital chapbook about Black women and fibroids. Her media credits include Sleep Stories for the Calm app; My Journey Home, a PBS documentary about
FAITH ADIELE is author of Meeting Faith, a memoir about becoming Thailand’s first Black Buddhist nun that won the PEN Open Book Award, and The Nigerian Nordic Girl’s Guide to Lady Problems, a digital chapbook about Black women and fibroids. Her media credits include Sleep Stories for the Calm app; My Journey Home, a PBS documentary about meeting her Nigerian family; and two episodes of HBO-Max series, A World of Calm. She is co-editor of Coming of Age Around the World: A Multicultural Anthology, and Marie Claire Magazine named her one of “Five Women to Learn From.” She is co-founder of VONA Travel, the nation’s first BIPOC travel writing workshop; BIPOC Writing Party, a weekly online writing community; and African Book Club at MoAD. She is a member of the Writers' Grotto.
VANESSA HUA is an award-winning, best-selling author and columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. Her novel, A River of Stars, was named to the Washington Post and NPR’s Best Books of 2018 lists, and has been called a "marvel" by O, The Oprah Magazine, and "delightful" by The Economist. Her short story collection, Deceit and Other Poss
VANESSA HUA is an award-winning, best-selling author and columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. Her novel, A River of Stars, was named to the Washington Post and NPR’s Best Books of 2018 lists, and has been called a "marvel" by O, The Oprah Magazine, and "delightful" by The Economist. Her short story collection, Deceit and Other Possibilities, a New York Times Editors' Choice, received an Asian/Pacific American Award in Literature and was a finalist for a California Book Award, and a New American Voices Award. Her novel, Forbidden City—called “magnificent” by Publisher’s Weekly, a “new classic” by the San Francisco Chronicle, and “masterful” by the Washington Post— is a national bestseller.
Chinese American author JENNY QI created Focal Point, winner of the 2020 Steel Toe Books Poetry Award. Her essays and poems have been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships and support from Tin House, Omnidawn, Kearny Street Workshop, the San Francisco Writers Grotto, the Brown Handler
Chinese American author JENNY QI created Focal Point, winner of the 2020 Steel Toe Books Poetry Award. Her essays and poems have been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships and support from Tin House, Omnidawn, Kearny Street Workshop, the San Francisco Writers Grotto, the Brown Handler Residency, and the San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press. She is working on more essays and poems and translating her late mother’s memoirs of the Chinese Cultural Revolution and immigration to the U.S.
Japanese American author SUSAN ITO’s memoir of essays will be published by the Ohio State University Press in 2023. She co-edited the literary anthology A Ghost At Heart’s Edge: Stories & Poems of Adoption (North Atlantic Books) and is a creative nonfiction co-editor at Literary Mama. Her work has appeared in Hip Mama, CHOICE, Growing Up
Japanese American author SUSAN ITO’s memoir of essays will be published by the Ohio State University Press in 2023. She co-edited the literary anthology A Ghost At Heart’s Edge: Stories & Poems of Adoption (North Atlantic Books) and is a creative nonfiction co-editor at Literary Mama. Her work has appeared in Hip Mama, CHOICE, Growing Up Asian American, The Bellevue Literary Review, Making More Waves, the Kartika Review and elsewhere. She is a Professor in the Ethnic Studies Program at Mills College and in the Creative Nonfiction MFA program at Bay Path University.
PREETI VANGANI is an Indian poet, writer and educator. Born and raised in Mumbai, she is the author of Mother Tongue Apologize (RLFPA Editions). Her poetry has been published in Gulf Coast, Hobart, Threepenny Review, among other journals. Her essays have been published in Buzzfeed India, The Ladies Finger, Huffington Post among other pl
PREETI VANGANI is an Indian poet, writer and educator. Born and raised in Mumbai, she is the author of Mother Tongue Apologize (RLFPA Editions). Her poetry has been published in Gulf Coast, Hobart, Threepenny Review, among other journals. Her essays have been published in Buzzfeed India, The Ladies Finger, Huffington Post among other places. Her debut short story, Work Wives, was awarded the 2022 PEN America/Robert J. Dau Prize. She is the Poetry Editor for Glass and has worked as a Poet Mentor with Youth Speaks. She has read her work at several Bay Area events including Litquake, Writers with Drinks, The Racket, and Babylon Salon. Her work has been supported by residencies and fellowships from Ucross, Djerassi, Tin House, PEN America and CCI. She holds an MFA (Writing) from University of San Francisco and currently teaches in the program.
ALYSIA LI YING SAWCHYN is the Editor-in-Chief of The Rumpus and currently lives in the DC area. Her debut essay collection, A FISH GROWING LUNGS, was published by Burrow Press in June 2020 and was a finalist for the Believer Award. You can find her on Twitter @HAPPIESTWERTHER
MATT ORTILE is the author of the essay collection The Groom Will Keep His Name and the co-editor of the nonfiction anthology Body Language. He is also the executive editor of Catapult magazine and was previously the founding editor of BuzzFeed Philippines. He has received fellowships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and MacDowell; has taught workshops for Kundiman, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and PEN America; and has written for Esquire, Vogue, Condé Nast Traveler, Out magazine, and BuzzFeed News, among others. He is a graduate of Vassar College, which means he now lives in Brooklyn.
TAYLOR BYAS is a Black poet and essayist. Originally from Chicago, she moved to Alabama for six years, where she received both her Bachelor’s degree in English and her Master’s degree in English (Creative Writing concentration) from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Taylor currently lives in Cincinnati, Ohio where she is a third year PhD student and Albert C. Yates Scholar at the University of Cincinnati studying poetry. She is also an Assistant Features Editor for The Rumpus.
Before joining Ayesha Pande Literary, ANNIE HWANG began her career at Folio Literary Management where she had the pleasure of working with debut and seasoned authors alike. As a former journalist, Annie possesses a keen editorial eye which she brings to her approach to agenting, taking an active role in the careers of her clients. Annie represents voice-driven literary fiction and select nonfiction. In particular, she gravitates toward subversive and irreverent literary fiction and impactful mission-driven narrative nonfiction that grapples with the complexities of our world. Above all, Annie is always on the hunt for gifted storytelling that stretches its genre to new heights. @AnnieAHwang
REGINA BROOKS is the founder and president of Serendipity Literary Agency in New York, New York. Her agency is the largest African American owned agency in the country and has represented and established a diverse base of award-winning clients in adult and young adult fiction, nonfiction, and children’s literature. Her authors have appeared in USA Today, the New York Times, and the Washington Post as well as on Oprah, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, FOX, MSBNC, TV One, BET, and a host of others. In 2015, Publishers Weekly nominated Regina Brooks as a PW Star Watch Finalist, and she was honored with a Stevie Award in Business. Writer’s Digest Magazine named Serendipity Literary Agency as one of the top 25 literary agencies. Formerly, she held senior editorial positions at John Wiley and Sons (where she was not only the youngest but also the first African American editor in their college division) and McGraw-Hill.
Prior to her publishing career, she worked as an aerospace engineer and made history as the first African American woman to receive a Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from The Ohio State University. She is a graduate of The School of the Arts High School in Rochester, NY.
LINDA CAMACHO was always a fan of escaping into a good book, so the fact that she gets to make it her career is still surreal. She graduated from Cornell with a B.S. in Communication and has seen many sides of the industry. She’s held various positions at Penguin Random House, Dorchester, Simon and Schuster, and Writers House literary agency until she ventured in agenting at Prospect Agency. She’s done everything from foreign rights to editorial to marketing to operations, so it was amazing to see how all the departments worked together to bring books to life. Somewhere in between all that (and little sleep), Linda received her MFA in creative writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Now at Gallt & Zacker Literary Agency, Linda continues to work with colleagues and clients who inspire her every day.
JD BELTRAN is an award-winning artist, filmmaker, designer, journalist, writer, and cultural strategist. She has written columns on art & culture for the Huffington Post and SFGate.com, and currently writes for Visual Art Source. She's achieved grants from Artadia, the MIT Media Lab, the San Francisco Arts Commission, Stochastic Labs, and Ars Electronica. She also was awarded a Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Fellowship, and residencies at Skowhegan, the Pilchuck School, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Stochastic Labs, and the Lucas Artists Residency at Montalvo Arts Center. She serves as a Commissioner on the San Francisco Arts Commission (since 2009), and was appointed as its President for 8 years, from 2011 to 2018. Beltran founded the non-profit Center for Creative Sustainability, which cultivates and implements groundbreaking creative collaborations, projects, initiatives, and legislation towards sustainability in the arts, the environment, and our society.
EVAN KARP is the founding director of Quiet Lightning and events manager for Booksmith and Berkeley Arts & Letters. He’s written literary columns for the San Francisco Chronicle, KQED, SF Weekly, SF/Arts and The Rumpus, and his nonfiction and poetry have appeared widely in print and online. Evan has released three albums combining music, words and other sounds, two with his brother Miles as Turk & Divis and one with Maw Shein Win as Vata & the Vine. He is a juror for the California Book Awards.
