Emerging Asian American Women Writers:Thursday, April 22

Identities and Influence: A Panel of Emerging Asian American Women Writers
Two novelists, a short story writer, and a poet discuss what influences and inspires their writing and how they negotiate their identity as Asian American Women writers. If you're in San Francisco, check it out!

Barbara Jane Reyes was born in Manila, Philippines, and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She received her BA in Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley and her MFA at San Francisco State University. Reyes is the author of Gravities of Center and Poeta en San Francisco, which received the James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets. Her third book, entitled Diwata, is forthcoming in 2010.

Anita Amirrezvani was born in Tehran, Iran, and raised in San Francisco. For ten years, she was a dance critic for newspapers in the Bay Area. She has received fellowships from the National Arts Journalism Program, the NEA’s Arts Journalism Institute for Dance, and the Hedgebrook Foundation for Women Writers. Amirrezvani’s first novel, The Blood of Flowers, skillfully interweaves culture, romance, and art.

Kathryn Ma’s stories have appeared in the Antioch Review, Prairie Schooner, Southwest Review, Threepenny Review, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere. Ma won the 2008 David Nathan Meyerson Prize for Fiction for her title story and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best New American Voices. A lawyer and a Bread Loaf Scholar, she has taught Creative Writing in the MFA Program at the University of Oregon. All That Work and Still No Boys is her first book.

Shawna Yang Ryan was born in Sacramento, California, the child of parents who met during the Vietnam War when her father was stationed in Taiwan. Ryan graduated from UC Berkeley, and received an M.A. from UC Davis. In 2002, she was a Fulbright scholar in Taiwan. Her novel Water Ghosts was a finalist for the 2008 Northern California Book Award.

Marianne Villanueva (moderator) is the author of the short story collections Ginseng and Other Tales from Manila and Mayor of the Roses. A third collection, The Lost Language, is forthcoming. Villanueva currently teaches writing and literature at Foothill College and Notre Dame de Namur University.

Co-sponsored by the USF Asian American Studies Program and the USF Center for the Pacific Rim. Call 415.422.6066 or email mfaw@usfca.edu for details and parking information. Thursday, April 22, 2010. 7:30 pm Program at the University of San Francisco. Fromm Hall. Free and open to the public.