Writing Our Ghosts: What to Do With Family History That Haunts
In partnership with KUNDIMAN: Featuring CATHY LINH CHE & KAT CHOW
1:45 pm – 2:45 pm
31st Street & Barclay Street
Waverly Neighborhood
What does it mean to write to, or in remembrance of, our family’s ghosts? In partnership with KUNDIMAN, this reading and conversation, CATHY LINH CHE (executive director of Kundiman and author of Becoming Ghost and Split) and KAT CHOW (author of Seeing Ghosts: A Memoir) will read from their works, discuss how they have contended with their familial histories via their creative practices, and address how writing out these ghosts can provide us with a more whole understanding of our collective past, present, and future. Cathy Linh Che’s Becoming Ghost “is a new masterpiece of American love lyric, in the vein of Rita Dove’s timeless Thomas and Beulah or Ilya Kaminsky’s Deaf Republic. She co-authored An Asian American A to Z: a Children’s Guide to Our History, which Viet Thanh Nguyen writes is the “Personal and political, playful and provocative, this rhyming guide brilliantly condenses rich, complicated Asian American histories. It’s an A to Z book that isn’t the last word on Asian American cultures but rather the beginning of many conversations.” Her film We Were the Scenery won the Short Film Jury Award: Nonfiction at the Sundance Film Festival. Kat Chow is a journalist and the author of Seeing Ghosts: A Memoir, “a memorial to her mother delivered in a graceful, captivating voice. … A certain kind of sorrow lingers because a part of us wants it and wills it to persist, and Chow artfully and intelligently maps which kind of grief this is” says Gaiutra Bahadur for The New York Times Book Review. Kundiman is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to nurturing generations of writers and readers of Asian American literature.
STAY INFORMED
Cathy Linh Che is a writer and multidisciplinary artist. She is the author of Becoming Ghost, Split, and co-author, with Kyle Lucia Wu, of the children’s book An Asian American A to Z: a Children’s Guide to Our History. Called a “mighty poet” by Kaveh Akbar, this work is “nimble across a variety of forms and voices, with a dazzling instinct for how one image, line, photograph, might illuminate the next. Becoming Ghost is an indelible reminder of all the people, known and unknown, who loved us enough to survive.” Her video installation Appocalips is an Open Call commission with The Shed NY, and her film We Were the Scenery won the Short Film Jury Award: Nonfiction at the Sundance Film Festival. She teaches as Core Faculty in Poetry at the low-residency MFA program in Creative Writing at Antioch University in Los Angeles and works as Executive Director at Kundiman. She lives in New York City.
cathylinhche.com
X: @cathylinhche
Instagram: @cathylinhche
Kat Chow is a journalist, writer, and the author of Seeing Ghosts: A Memoir, named a Notable Book by The New York Times and a finalist for the Connecticut Book Award. She is currently the Newsday/Laventhol Visiting Assistant Professor at the Columbia Journalism School. She was a reporter at NPR, where she was a founding member of the Code Switch team and podcast. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, New York Magazine’s The Cut, and on Radiolab, and she’s a contributor to Pop Culture Happy Hour. She’s received residency fellowships from Storyknife, Millay Arts, and the Jack Jones Literary Arts Retreat.
www.katchow.com
Instagam: @katchow_
About Kundiman
Kundiman is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to nurturing generations of writers and readers of Asian American literature. Kundiman creates a space where Asian Americans can explore, through art, the unique challenges that face the new and ever-changing diaspora. We see the arts as a tool of empowerment, of education and liberation, and of addressing proactively the legacy we will leave for our future. Kundiman’s programs include an annual Retreat, readings and panels, online classes and workshops, Regional Groups, and more.
www.kundiman.org/
Instagram: @kundimanforever
Facebook: www.facebook.com/kundimanforever/.