READING PERIOD: FEBRUARY 1 – MARCH 15

The Kundiman Poetry Prize is dedicated to publishing exceptional work by Asian American poets at any stage of their career. Winner receives $1,000 and book publication with Tupelo Press. Submit your manuscript by March 15th, 2016. 

TUPELO PRESS

Tupelo Press is an independent, literary press devoted to discovering and publishing works of poetry, literary fiction, and creative nonfiction by emerging and established writers.

PREVIOUS WINNERS 

2015 –– Rajiv Mohabir, The Cowherd's Son
2014 –– Janine Joseph, Driving Without a License 
2013 –– Lo Kwa Mei-en, Yearling 
2012 –– Cathy Linh Che, Split 
2011 –– Matthew Olzmann, Mezzanines 
2010 –– Janine Oshiro, Pier 

ELIGIBILITY

Asian American writers living in the United States.

To learn more about general manuscript guidelines or how to submit, please visit: http://kundiman.org/prize/

Call for submissions

Emotive Fruition, a performance series where actors bring poetry to life on stage, is seeking submissions for its May 25th show at the Botanic Lab in NYC. This episode will be held in conjunction with the release of Janine Joseph’s debut collection, Driving Without a License, winner of the Kundiman Prize for Poetry.
 
For this themed performance, we are looking for published or unpublished poems that explore notions and experiences of (un)documented immigration, migration, home, exile, and/or what it means to be(come) American. We are seeking poems that are written in the first person and can function as a story, a confession, a revelation, an elegy, a reckoning, a moment of desire, etc. We are interested in how a poem on the page can come to life on stage, with the voice of the poet coming through the voice of the actor.
 
After poems are selected and poets notified, we will hold a rehearsal in Manhattan with both poets and actors on May 23rd. Because of the nature of the collaboration, you must be able to travel to NYC for the rehearsals and performance. Please follow the guidelines below. We look forward to reading your work!

Guidelines:

* Send a Microsoft Word document of poems (NOT PDF!) to thomas@emotivefruition.org.
* Please title your attachment and the subject line of your email as “LastName_EmoFru_Year.doc
   “(example: Dooley_EmoFru_2015.doc).
* Provide your name and email address on each page of your attachment.
* Please include a brief bio in the body of your email.
* Deadline: January 15, 2016

For more information, please click here: http://emotivefruition.org/connect/ 

June 15 – 19, 2016
Fordham University
Rose Hill Campus
New York City

Now accepting applications for the
2016 Kundiman Asian American Writing Retreat

In order to help mentor the next generation of Asian American writers, Kundiman sponsors an annual Retreat in partnership with Fordham University. During the Retreat, nationally renowned Asian American poets and writers conduct workshops with fellows. This year's faculty members are Jaswinder Bolina, Kimiko Hahn, Lee Herrick, Porochista Khakpour, R. Zamora Linmark, and Bich Minh Nguyen. Kundiman provides a safe and instructive environment that identifies and addresses the unique challenges faced by emerging Asian American writers. Our hope is that fellows are able to forge a deeper relationship to their artistic process and are able to encounter their work with renewed focus and energy. 

To apply, submit a cover letter and a brief writing sample of your genre. For poets, submit a writing sample of 5–7 pages. Fiction writers, submit a writing sample of 5 pages (1250 words max). The deadline to apply is January 5th, 2016. Accepted fellows will be notified in late January.

For the poetry application, please click here: https://kundiman.submittable.com/submit

For the fiction application, please click here: https://kundiman.submittable.com/submit

For more information about the Retreat, watch this video: https://vimeo.com/72058947

Photo Credit: Margarita Corporan

Poetry Faculty

Jaswinder Bolina is author of the poetry collections Phantom Camera, winner of the 2012 Green Rose Prize from New Issues Press, and Carrier Wave, winner of the 2006 Colorado Prize for Poetry. His recent poems are collected in the digital chapbook The Tallest Building in America (2014). They have also appeared in numerous U.S. and international literary journals and in The Best American Poetry series. His essays have appeared on The Poetry Foundation, The Huffington Post, The State, The Writer, and in several anthologies including Poets on Teaching (University of Iowa Press 2011), Language: A Reader for Writers (Oxford University Press 2013), and in the forthcoming 14th edition of The Norton Reader. Bolina is a professor of poetry in the MFA Program at the University of Miami. 

Kimiko Hahn has been attracted to disparate source material over her nine collections of poetry—whether Flaubert's sex-tour in The Unbearable Heart, an exhumation in The Artist's Daughter or classical Japanese forms in The Narrow Road to the Interior. Rarefied fields of science prompted her latest collections Toxic Flora and Brain Fever. An advocate of chapbooks, her latest is The Cryptic Chamber. She is a distinguished professor at Queens College, City University of New York.

Lee Herrick is the Fresno Poet Laureate and the author of two books, Gardening Secrets of the Dead and This Many Miles from Desire. His poems have appeared in The Bloomsbury Review, ZYZZYVA, Highway 99: A Literary Journey Through California’s Great Central Valley, 2nd edition, and Indivisible: Poems of Social Justice, among others. Born in Daejeon, South Korea and adopted at ten months, he lives in Fresno, California and teaches at Fresno City College and in the low-residency MFA Program at Sierra Nevada College.

Fiction Faculty

R. Zamora Linmark is the author of the best-selling novel Rolling the R’s, the novel Leche, and three collections of poetry. He has received fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and the U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission. His stage adaptation of Rolling the R’s premiered in Honolulu in 2008 to critical and commercial success. He has lectured and taught, as a distinguished visiting professor in Creative Writing, in universities in the U.S. and the Philippines. Linmark divides his time between Manila and Honolulu.

Bich Minh Nguyen is the author of the novel Short Girls, which was named an American Book Award winner in fiction and a Library Journal best book of the year. Her memoir, Stealing Buddha's Dinner, received the PEN/Jerard Award from the PEN American Center and was a Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year. Her most recent novel is Pioneer Girl. Nguyen has taught fiction and creative nonfiction in the MFA Program at Purdue University and the MFA in Writing Program at the University of San Francisco. She and her family live in the Bay Area. 

Porochista Khakpour was born in Tehran, raised in Los Angeles and lives in New York City. She the author of the forthcoming memoir Sick (HarperPerennial, 2017), and the novels The Last Illusion (Bloomsbury, 2014)—a 2014 "Best Book of the Year" according to NPR, Kirkus, Buzzfeed, Popmatters, Electric Literature, and more— and SONS AND OTHER FLAMMABLE OBJECTS (Grove, 2007), the 2007 California Book Award winner in “First Fiction,” one of the Chicago Tribune’s “Fall’s Best,” and a New York Times “Editor’s Choice.” Her writing has appeared in or is forthcoming in Harper’s, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, Al Jazeera America, Bookforum, Slate, Salon, Spin, The Daily Beast, Elle,and many other publications around the world. She is currently Editor at Large at The Scofield and Contributing Editor at The Offing, and Writer in Residence at Bard College.

To see a full list faculty from previous years, please click here: http://kundiman.org/faculty/

Photo Credit: Margarita Corporan

Testimonials

"As soon as I arrived, I was greeted so warmly as if I was among old friends! Here was a group of dynamic people who shared both my struggles—being a writer of color in America—and my passions: a deep devotion to the art of poetry.  I've always heard, read, and spoken about the importance of community in any artistic endeavor.  The poet's road can be a lonely one; the drifting heart needs its anchors.  But I never realized how empowering  a community of artists could be until I spent four days with the Kundiman staff, teachers, and fellows.  I found there what I failed to find in my MFA program, or in any other poetry workshop I've taken: a deep respect and honor among poets; a desire to talk about race, identity, and history, in conjunction with one's composition process; and a willingness to be brave, to fail, and to look silly.  The sillier the better!  In fact, the laughter, energy, and spark never expired, despite the hot, long days and even longer nights.  I thank the founders of Kundiman and the entire staff for having the vision to create and maintain such a fierce

––Brynn Saito

"Kundiman has been a transformative experience toward courage and sensitivity. Never have I been surrounded by such an instant sense of family and fellowship, of bread-breaking over poetry. Writing and reading poems during the retreat were rare opportunities to be vulnerable without judgment. There are no words for the dams that break when we realize we don't have to apologize for ourselves as poets or minorities and can be our whole, complex selves. The Kundiman retreat and family exist in a pocket outside of real time for me, in a space where I learn to push myself beyond what I thought were grace and poise, to a new kind of balance, support, joy, and permission. Kundiman teaches me to live my poems; my successes are worth little without the celebration of this

––Henry W. Leung

For more testimonials, please visit this link: http://kundiman.org/testimonials/

If you have any questions, please contact us at info@kundiman.org. We look forward to reading your applications! 

ASIAN AMERICAN ARTS ALLIANCE'S
DECEMBER TOWN HALL / POP-UP MARKET

Thursday, December 17th, 6:30 - 9:30pm

W83
150 West 83rd Street
Fifth Floor (Loft and Roof Terrace)
New York, NY 10024

For those of you who are Town Hall regulars, you're in for a real treat! Kundiman will be joining the Asian American Arts Alliance for the December Town Hall. We will have some pitches, performances, and a potluck but with a slight twist: Our featured artists are those participating in the pop-up, and those that want to pitch will have the opportunity to do so digitally through our Tumblr and social media. 

Come by the Kundiman table and join us for some holiday cheer! 

Free and open to the public.

For event details and to RSVP, please visit: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/december-town-hall-registration-19336827973

Tuesday, December 1st

Thank you for being a part of Kundiman! 

If Kundiman has impacted you in any way, if you believe in the necessity of Asian American art making and storytelling, please give to Kundiman on this #givingtuesday. Click here to make a one time or recurring gift. We appreciate your generosity and loving support. 

Make your donation today at http://kundiman.org/donate

Kundiman Poetry Prize Reading
 

Friday, November 13th, 5pm

NYU Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House
58 West 10th Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues) 
New York, NY 10011

Lo Kwa Mei-en’s first book "Yearling" is the 2013 winner of the Kundiman Poetry Prize and out now from Alice James Books. Tarfia Faizullah’s first book is "Seam" (Southern Illinois University Press, 2014). Porochista Khakpour is the author of two novels, most recently "The Last Illusion" (Bloomsbury, 2015). Poet and fiction writer Jennifer Tseng’s most recent work is the novel "Mayumi and the Sea of Happiness" (Europa Editions, 2015). This event is co-sponsored with New York University.

For more information, please visit the Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/861298457310877/ 

Sunday, November 22, 1pm

Politics and Prose
5015 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20008
 

Michelle Chan Brown & Patricia Schultheis Reading in DC

A non-profit literary organization established in 1973 to foster the work of writers in the Washington-Baltimore area, Washington Writers Publishing House sponsors annual prizes in poetry and fiction. The 2015 Jean Feldman Award goes to Michelle Chan Brown, editor of Drunken Boat, for her second full-length collection of poems Motherland, with Wolves. Brown is also the author of Double Agent, honored with the 2012 Kore First Book Award, and the chapbook The Clever Decoys. Patricia Schultheis has won the WWPH fiction prize for her collection of stories. A finalist for the 2008 Flannery O’Connor Award, Schultheis has published short fiction in a wide range of literary journals; she’s also a voting member of the National Book Critics Circle and has served on the editorial boards of The Baltimore Review and Narrative magazine.

For more information, please visit the Politics and Prose website: http://www.politics-prose.com/event/book/michelle-chan-brown-motherland-wolves-patricia-schultheis-st-bart-s-way

Kundiman & Filipino American Museum Present:
Three Days of Reading Rizal

Celebrate Filipino American History Month with an unprecedented weekend-long production of Jose Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere, his seminal work that defined Filipino national identity. Manhattan Reads Rizal is an immersive marathon production that pushes the boundaries of theater, multidisciplinary performance, and literary presentation.

For information on all events, please visit the Facebook Event page at: https://www.facebook.com/events/500442533463798/

Saturday, October 17th, 12-2pm
Noli Me Tangere: The Dinner Party
http://nolimetangeresat.brownpapertickets.com/

FAM (Filipino American Museum) presents a dinner party out of the 1800's. Join a cast of characters from religious zealots to military officers to socialites as they navigate the social mores and complicated politics of late 19th century colonial Philippines. Eat dinner and observe the happenings of the first three chapters of the seminal Jose Rizal novel Noli Me Tangere as the character come to life around you. Featuring Alan Ariano, Quinn Coughlin, Ron Domingo, Jose Llana, Alfredo Narciso, PJ Policarpio, and Ching Valdes-Aran. Directed by Ken Leung.
 
General Admission (includes lunch buffet): $30 online / $40 at the door
Weekend Pass (includes lunch buffet and admission to 3:30pm Sunday and 6:30pm Monday shows): $40 online / $50 at the door.

Sunday, October 18th, 3:30-8pm
Noli Me Tangere: The Marathon
http://nolimetangeresun.brownpapertickets.com/

FAM (Filipino American Museum) presents a marathon reading of the seminal Jose Rizal novel Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not) . Artists, actors, dancers, activists read from the novel that shaped a national identity. Come hear the story of a colonized society and all the secrets, conspiracies, heroes and villains that result from a fractured country's subconscious. Featuring Marilyn Abalos, Patricia Astorga, Liz Casasola, Christelle de Castro, Maha Chelaoui, Luis Francia, Avena Gallagher, Rio Guerrero, Cecilia Pagkalinawan, Maia Cruz Palileo, Nicole Ponseca, Patrick Rosal, Ninotchka Rosca, Jon Santos, Sophia Skiles, Jaret Vadrea, Aldrin Valdez and more.

Tickets: $7 online / $10 at the door

Monday, October 19th, 6-8pm
Jose Rizal: What Tomorrow Brings
nolimetangeremon.brownpapertickets.com

FAM presents as a close to its exploration of Noli Me Tangere, an introduction to Jose Rizal’s follow-up novel, the explosive El Filibusterismo. Scholars, knights, and Rizal experts discuss the importance of these novels and how they resonate with a contemporary community's search for identity.

Tickets: $7 online / $10 at the door

Hearts of Palm Reading Palace

October 24, 7:30pm

Poetic Research Bureau
951 Chung King Road
Los Angeles, California 90012

Join us for a star dusty evening with fellows Kenji C. Liu and Margaret Rhee reading at the Hearts of Palm Reading Palace under the ever so often L.A. pink sky. Curated by Feliz Lucia Molina. 

Kenji C. Liu's forthcoming poetry collection Map of an Onion is the 2015 national winner of the Hillary Gravendyk Prize. His writing appears in The American Poetry Review, Asian American Literary Review, Barrow Street Journal, CURA, RHINO, Split This Rock's poem of the week series, and several anthologies. A recipient of fellowships from Kundiman, VONA/Voices, Djerassi Resident Artist Program, and Community of Writers at SV, he holds an MA in Cultural Anthropology and Social Transformation.

Margaret Rhee is the author of chapbooks Yellow (Tinfish Press, 2011) and Radio Heart; or, How Robots Fall Out of Love (forthcoming Finishing Line Press, 2015). She co-edited Glitter Tongue: queer and trans love poems and Mixed Blood, a literary journal on race and innovative poetics edited by CS Giscombe. She is the Kathy Acker Fellow at Les Figues Press and an associate editor for Tupelo Press. In 2014, she received her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in ethnic and new media studies, and her BA in English and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California. Currently, she is a visiting assistant professor in Women and Gender Studies at the University of Oregon.

For more information, please visit the Facebook Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1645150495737828/

Intersection For The Arts' 50/50 Poetry Nights

November 10, 7:30-9pm

Tenderloin Museum
398 Eddy Street
San Francisco, CA 94102

Featuring Truong Tran, François Luong, Michelle Lin, Carolyn Ho, and Sean Labrador y Manzano. Curated by Mg Roberts. Admission is free and open to the public. 

Truong Tran is a visual artist and the author of The Book of Perceptions, placing the accents, dust and conscience, within the margin, four letter words, and a children’s book, Going Home Coming Home. The Book of Perceptions was a finalist for The Kiriyama Prize and placing the accents (Apogee Press, 1999) was a finalist for the Western States Prize for Poetry. dust and conscience (Apogee Press, 2002) was awarded the San Francisco State Poetry Center Prize. His honors include grants from The Fund for Poetry, The Creative Work Fund, The Cultural Equity Grant, and The California Arts Council Grant. Truong lives in San Francisco where he is currently teaching poetry at San Francisco State University and Mills College.

Originally from Strasbourg, France, François Luong lives in San Francisco. He has translated the works of Esther Tellermann, François Turcot, and Rémi Froger, as well as other francophone poets from France, Québec and elsewhere. His translations have appeared or are forthcoming in LIT, West Wind Review, Verse, Dandelion (Canada), Aufgabe, and elsewhere.

Michelle Lin is the author of A House Made of Water (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2017). Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Adrienne, Quaint Magazine, The Journal, Aster(ix), Phoebe, North American Review, TYPO, Apogee, and more. She has served as an editor for the journals Mosaic, Hot Metal Bridge, and B. E. Quarterly, and currently serves as Poetry Reader for Twelfth House Journal. She has taught at the University of Pittsburgh, LEAPS summer program, and Young Writer's Institute. She works for Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Carolyn Ho is a poet and artist. She is a Kundiman fellow, William Dickey fellow, won the SF Foundation's Phelan Award, the Anne Fields Poetry Award, the Kathryn Manoogian Scholarship, and a grant recipient from the San Francisco Arts Commission, among other whatnots.She believes the over 25,000 cranes she’s made over a six-year period are merely a byproduct of coping with, among other concerns, the disenchantment of earning a fine arts degree during a tech boom and the horrors of being an adult. Last year, SF Weekly recently mentioned her as one of fourteen, "Best Writers Without a Book (in) San Francisco - 2014," Carolyn is still saddened by this announcement.

Sean Labrador y Manzano has an MFA in Poetry from Mills College. His column "Conversations at a Wartime Cafe" appears at McSweeneys. He served as poetry editor for Tea Party Magazine and the L.A. based Forth Magazine. His work can be found in Chain, Bay Poetics, McSweeney's, The Best American Poetry 2004, and elsewhere.

For more information, please click here: http://www.theintersection.org/#!5050-poetry-nights/c1ctk 

For a full schedule, please visit the Facebook Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/452230071645206/

EMOTIVE FRUITION SHOW FT. JANINE JOSEPH'S
DRIVING WITHOUT A LICENSE

May 25, 2016
7:30pm

Botanic Lab NYC
86 Orchard Street
New York, NY 10002

Emotive Fruition, a performance series where actors bring poetry to life on stage, is hosting its May 25th show at the Botanic Lab in NYC. This episode will be held in conjunction with the release of Janine Joseph’s debut collection, Driving Without a License, winner of the Kundiman Prize for Poetry. 

For more information, please click here: http://emotivefruition.org/connect/ 

A Tribute to the Poet Ai

October 19, 7pm

Proshansky Auditorium
CUNY Graduate Center
365 5th Avenue (at 34th Street)
New York, NY 10016

In light of the poet's unexpected passing in 2010 and in celebration of her Collected Poems (Norton, 2012), Kundiman has teamed up with the Academy of American Poets, Cave Canem Foundation, Graduate Center for the Humanities, CUNY, Poetry Society of America, and Poets House to present this memorial tribute.  Nine distinguished contemporary poets—Timothy Donnelly, Rigoberto González, Joy Harjo, Tyehimba Jess, Patricia Spears Jones, Yusef Komunyakaa, Timothy Liu, Sapphire, and Susan Wheeler—will read from Ai's work, and House of Cards actor Eisa Davis will perform a selection of Ai's well-known dramatic monologues.

Facebook Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/738345589624563/

Admission is free.

Kundiman at Seattle LitCrawl

October 22, 8pm
Still Liquor 1524 Minor Ave, Seattle, Washington 98101

Featuring fellows Amy Lam and Neil Aitken, with faculty Rick Barot, from the annual retreat dedicated to the cultivation of Asian American literature. Michelle Peñaloza hosts. [21+]

For the complete Lit Crawl Seattle line-up, please go here:http://litcrawl.org/seattle/2015-schedule
Facebook Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/849366475158519/

Neil Aitken is the author of The Lost Country of Sight, winner of the 2007 Philip Levine Prize, and founding editor of Boxcar Poetry Review. A former computer programmer of Chinese, Scottish, and English descent, he was born in Vancouver, BC and raised in Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, and the western United States and Canada. His poems have appeared in American Literary Review, Crab Orchard Review, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere. He recently completed a Ph.D. in literature and creative writing at USC and now lives in Vancouver, WA. His second book of poetry, Babbage’s Dream, is forthcoming from Sundress Publications.

Rick Barot has published three books of poetry with Sarabande Books: The Darker Fall (2002), Want (2008), which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and won the 2009 Grub Street Book Prize, and Chord (2015). His poems and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including Poetry, The Paris Review, New Republic, Ploughshares, Tin House, The Kenyon Review, and Virginia Quarterly Review. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Artist Trust of Washington, the Civitella Ranieri, and Stanford University, where he was a Wallace E. Stegner Fellow and a Jones Lecturer. He lives in Tacoma and directs The Rainier Writing Workshop, the low-residency MFA program in creative writing at Pacific Lutheran University. He is also the poetry editor for New England Review.

Amy Lam is the associate editor at Bitch Media, a Kundiman fellow, and former WorldTeach volunteer. She tweets @amyadoyzie and is a Portland Trail Blazers fan.

Michelle Peñaloza is the author of two chapbooks: landscape/heartbreak (Two Sylvias Press) and Last Night I Dreamt of Volcanoes (Organic Weapon Arts). Her poetry can be found in Asian American Literary Review, New England Review, TriQuarterly, The Collagist and elsewhere. She is the recipient of fellowships and awards from the University of Oregon, Kundiman, Artist Trust, 4Culture, and Hugo House, as well as scholarships from VONA/Voices, Vermont Studio Center, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, among others.

YouthCAN Program in Seattle

October 30, 3:30-7pm
Wing Luke Museum
719 S King Street
Seattle, WA 98104

Michelle Penaloza and Jane Wong will be guest facilitating a workshop for Wing Luke's YouthCAN program in Seattle on October 30th. Spread the word to creative youth in the area! 

For more information, please go to http://www.wingluke.org/youthcan

The American Poem

October 17, 8:30-9:30pm

Dijital Fix
820 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

Featuring Shamala Gallagher, Laura Jew, Geraldine Kim, Kenji C. Liu, MG Roberts, and Candy Shue who explore the complexities of the Asian American experience. Writers confront the liminal spaces of our modern unrest and civil poetics.

For more information about this event, please go here: http://www.litquake.org/events/kundiman-west-presents-american-poem 
For the full LitQuake line-up, find more information here: http://www.litquake.org/event-series/litquake-2015

Dogeaters in the Diaspora

October 15, 7-8:30pm

Fordham School of Law
140 West 62nd Street
New York, NY 10023

A symposium celebrating 25 years of Jessica Hagedorn's groundbreaking Filipino American novel featuring Walter Mosley, Marlon James, Gina Apostol, Mia Alvar, Ralph B. Peña, Mia Katigbak, Jeffrey Santa Ana, Allan Isaac, Nerissa Balce and the author herself, Jessica Hagedorn. Playwright and fiction writer Han Ong will host and moderate.

Free and open to the public. 

Friday, September 18, 2015
7:00 PM
Unnameable Books, 600 Vanderbilt Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11238

Poets Yesenia Montilla and Angel Nafis join non­fiction writer Amarnath Ravva and fiction writer Gina Apostol to celebrate writers of color. The authors will read from New York­-based writers of color that have influenced them, and from their own work. This reading is presented by Asian American literary organizations Kaya Press and Kundiman, who will be sharing a booth at the Brooklyn Book Festival on Sunday Sept. 20th. #LitinColor is a campaign to draw attention to the influence of writers of color on the national imagination.

Bios:

GINA APOSTOL's last novel, Gun Dealers’ Daughter, won the 2013 PEN/Open Book Award and was shortlisted for the 2014 William Saroyan International Prize. Her first two novels, Bibliolepsy and The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata, both won the Juan Laya Prize for the Novel (Philippine National Book Award). She is working on William McKinley’s World, a novel set in Balangiga and Tacloban in 1901, during the Philippine-American War. She was writer-in-residence at Phillips Exeter Academy and a fellow at Civitella Ranieri in Umbria, Italy, among other fellowships. Her essays and stories have appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, Foreign Policy, Gettysburg Review, Massachusetts Review, and others. She lives in New York City and western Massachusetts and grew up in Tacloban, the Philippines. She teaches at the Fieldston School in New York City.

YESENIA MONTILLA is a New York City poet with Afro-Caribbean roots. Her poetry has appeared in the chapbook For the Crowns of Your Head, as well as the literary journals 5AM,Adanna, The Wide Shore and others. She received her MFA from Drew University in Poetry and Poetry in Translation and is a CantoMundo Fellow. Her first collection The Pink Box will be published by Willow Books in October of 2015.

ANGEL NAFIS (Brooklyn, NY) is a Cave Canem Fellow. Her work has appeared in The Rattling Wall, Union Station Magazine, MUZZLE Magazine, Mosaic Magazine and Poetry Magazine. She is an Urban Word NYC Mentor and the founder, curator, and host of the quarterly Greenlight Bookstore Poetry Salon reading series. She is the author of BlackGirl Mansion (Red Beard Press/ New School Poetics, 2012). Facilitating generative writing workshops and reading poems across the United States and Canada, she lives in Brooklyn.

California-based writer AMARNATH RAVVA (Los Angeles, CA) is the author of American Canyon (Kaya Press, 2014). He has performed at LACMA, Machine Project, the MAK Center at the Schindler House, New Langton Arts, the Hammer Museum, USC, Pomona, CalArts, and the Sorbonne. In addition to his writing practice, he is a member of the site specific ambient music supergroup Ambient Force 3000, and for the past nine years he has helped run and curate events at Betalevel, a venue for social experimentation and hands-on culture located in Los Angeles’ Chinatown. He is currently working on a book about Victorian era botanical expeditions called The Glass House.

Facebook Event Page here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1719097484980473/

Kundiman & Kaya Booth at the Brooklyn Book FestivaL

Sunday, September 20th, 10am – 6pm
Table #247

Join Kaya Press and Kundiman for a scavenger hunt and readings by writers of color at Table #247 at The Brooklyn Book Festival. 

Kundiman partners with Bryant Park's Word for Word Reading Series to present a delightful en plein air reading.

Featuring poets:
Lo Kwa Mei-en
Rickey Laurentiis
Brenda Shaughnessy
Wendy Xu

Tuesday, September 1st, 7PM
Bryant Park Reading Room
6th Avenue and 42nd Street

Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1476986885954984/

Lo Kwa Mei-en is the author of YEARLING (Alice James Books 2015), winner of the Kundiman Poetry Prize. Her poems can be found in Black Warrior Review, Boston Review, Guernica, Gulf Coast, The Kenyon Review, and other journals. She is from Singapore and Ohio, where she currently lives and works.

Rickey Laurentiis is the author of Boy with Thorn, selected by Terrance Hayes for the 2014 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, forthcoming from University of Pittsburgh Press in Fall 2015. He is the recipient of 2013 Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a 2012 Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. 

Brenda Shaughnessy was born in Okinawa, Japan, and grew up in southern California. She is the author of Our Andromeda (2012), Human Dark with Sugar (2008), winner of the James Laughlin Award and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Interior with Sudden Joy (1999). Shaughnessy’s poems have appeared in Best American Poetry, Harper’s, The Nation, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The Rumpus. She is an assistant professor of English at Rutgers University, Newark and lives in New Jersey with her husband, son, and daughter.

WENDY XU is the author of You Are Not Dead (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2013) and the recipient of a 2014 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship