For the third year in a row, TaiwaneseAmerican.org founder Ho Chie Tsai and editor-in-chief Leona Chen hosted a Taiwanese American Writers’ Dinner during the annual Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference (AWP). This time, we gathered at Pine & Crane DTLA, and immediately began chatting —first in the queue, then at a long table where we rotated seats to ensure new connections. These conversations could happen anywhere, with anyone, but not quite like this.
These meetups have become touchstones for celebrating milestones together. In our first year in Seattle, we listened intently as Grace Loh Prasad, Shin Yu Lai, and Jami Nakamura commiserated on the anxieties that precede a book’s launch to the wider world. By 2024, in Kansas City, we were passing around copies of those very books, hot off the press, for signings at the table, cheering each other on for having overcome so much to arrive at this exact, joyful moment. This year, we did the same for Kim Liao, whose book Where Every Ghost Has a Name had been published since we first met her in 2024. We feel so privileged to have cultivated relationships that can stretch over time, some of which first took root even before these writers stepped into these identities as writers (like Ho Chie’s erstwhile TAF swing choir partner – IYKYK).
But between the book announcements and launches were also introductions made via email, doors opened (and held open), interviews conducted and paid forward, and countless other acts of friendship and quiet support that give “community” its true meaning. We were so pleased to see these connections strengthened and fortified beyond these annual dinners, and know that as we make space to find each other, we’re also learning to tend to each other, too.
For every lonely and isolating experience, whether it be to hold a Taiwanese American identity when few around you do, or to embark on a profession that is by nature very solitary, we hope we can be a comfort and source of encouragement. None of us are alone if we don’t want to be.
Our small world can sometimes feel like a string of coincidences, but we prefer to see it as a web of meaningfully cultivated connections. We had writers in attendance who were also cousins (hi Jeff Yang and Michelle Young!). But many of our guests met for the first time tonight and immediately bonded over their shared literary and cultural identity. One conversation about the challenges of being both authors and parents evolved into a deeper discussion about the unique experience of second-generation Asian American writers raising children with a triangulated sense of self. We bonded over beef noodle soup recipes and the works-in-progress we were drafting. We offered to help where we could. Our favorite moment was when screenwriter/author Weiko Lin (Crazy Screenwriting Secrets) started describing a children’s book he’d read that had made him cry. “It’s like the best picture book I’ve ever read,” he said, rattling off the images and emotions he remembered from the story. Across from him, Livia Blackburne looked around, as if unsure. “Wait,” she said. “I think he’s talking about my book [I Dream of Popo].”
We hope you take some time to read more from these writers, whose published works are linked below. These dinners, and all that occurs in between them, remind us that art, though often an individual pursuit, is inextricable from community-building and mutual care. We resist the temptation of isolation and competition best when we 幫對方夾菜—when we nourish each other, knowing that someone else is always looking out for us, too.
In attendance today, in addition to TaiwaneseAmerican.org board member Margaret Chen and other guests:
Shin Yu Pai
Shin Yu Pai is a Seattle-based poet and the author of 13 books, including No Neutral (Empty Bowl, 2023) and Less Desolate (Blue Cactus Press, 2023). She currently serves as the Civic Poet of Seattle and is the creator and host of the award-winning podcast Ten Thousand Things. Her work has received recognition from the Academy of American Poets and Artist Trust.
Explore Shin Yu Pai’s books on Bookshop.org
Grace Loh Prasad
Grace Loh Prasad, author of “The Translator’s Daughter,” frequently writes on diaspora and belonging. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Longreads, The Offing, Hyperallergic, Catapult, Ninth Letter, and KHÔRA.
Explore Grace Loh Prasad’s book on Bookshop.org
Michelle Young
Michelle Young is the author of the forthcoming nonfiction book The Art Spy: The Extraordinary Untold Tale of WWII Resistance Hero Rose Valland (HarperOne). She founded Untapped New York, an online magazine uncovering New York City’s secrets. Her previous works include Secret Brooklyn, Secret New York: An Unusual Guide, Secret New York: Hidden Bars and Restaurants, and Broadway.
Pre-order Michelle Young’s book, out May 2025, on Bookshop.org
Kim Liao
Kim Liao is the author of Where Every Ghost Has a Name: A Memoir of Taiwanese Independence (Rowman & Littlefield). Her nonfiction and fiction have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Electric Literature, Lit Hub, The Rumpus, McSweeney’s, The Millions, Salon, and others.
Explore Kim Liao’s books on Bookshop.org
Alvin Lu
Alvin Lu resides in San Francisco and is the author of the novels Daydreamers (forthcoming from Fiction Collective 2) and The Hell Screens.
Explore Alvin Lu’s books on Bookshop.org
Lillian Huang Cummins
Lillian Huang Cummins is a writer and psychologist based near Chicago. She has received support from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, The Elizabeth George Foundation, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. A graduate of the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, she is working on her first novel.
Holiday Dmitri
Holiday Dmitri is a Taiwanese American writer whose writing has appeared in The Taipei Times, The Chicago Criterion, Rolling Stone, Radar, and Reason Magazine, among other places. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson with additional degrees in journalism, social science, and international affairs from Northwestern University, University of Chicago, and the New School in New York City respectively. Holiday is an alum of the 2020 Tin House Winter Novels Workshop and the recipient of inaugural artist fellowships from Essere Residency (Italy) and Studio Faire (France). She lives in Brooklyn and is at work on a speculative literary novel exploring themes of identity and belonging, science and technology, and human aloneness in an age of so-called connectivity.
Cindy Chou
Cindy Chou is a professional chef, Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (RDN), recipe developer, cooking video creator, food photographer, and food writer. Trained at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY, she studied nutritional sciences at NYU and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
Kristi Hong
Kristi Hong is the author of the romance novel The Teacher’s Match, published by Harlequin Heartwarming, a division of HarperCollins Publishers.
Born to immigrants from Taiwan, Kristi Hong grew up in Michigan and while she’s lived in many different places, she’s still a Midwestern girl at heart. After a career on Wall Street, Kristi fulfilled her middle school dreams by becoming a published author, with a goal of writing books featuring diverse characters, particularly Asian Americans.
Kristi worked at a florist and an ice cream shop as a teenager and has loved all things dessert- and floral-related ever since. When not writing, she can be found reading a book, taking a long afternoon nap, or munching on a pan-fried dumpling.
Pre-order Kristi Hong’s book, out April 2025, on Bookshop.org
Weiko Lin
Weiko Lin is a writer/producer and author exploring Asian diaspora and creating global narrative content. He is developing two Disney+ Asia Pacific original series and a feature biopic about an American WWII flying ace, with Oscar nominee Andrew Lazar attached to produce.
Explore Weiko Lin’s book on Bookshop.org
Livia Blackburne
Livia Blackburne is a New York Times bestselling author who wrote her first novel while researching the neuroscience of reading at MIT. Her books include the YA fantasies Midnight Thief (An Indies Introduce New Voices selection), Rosemarked (A YALSA Teens Top Ten nominee), and the picture book I Dream of Popo, which received multiple starred reviews and appeared on numerous Best of Year lists. She is Taiwanese Chinese American and lives in Southern California with her husband and daughter.
Explore Livia Blackburne’s books on Bookshop.org
Jeff Yang
Jeff Yang is a writer, journalist, and cultural critic who has been exploring and documenting Asian American communities for over three decades. He founded A. Magazine, one of the first national Asian American magazines, and has contributed to publications such as The Wall Street Journal, CNN, and The New York Times. Yang is the co-author of several books, including RISE: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now and The Golden Screen: The Movies That Made Asian America.
Explore Jeff Yang’s books on Bookshop.org
Emmeline Chang
Emmeline Chang is a Taiwanese American writer whose work spans fiction, nonfiction, and middle-grade literature. Her writing has appeared in HuffPost, ACM: Another Chicago Magazine, BigCityLit, and anthologies from Seal Press and Tarcher/Putnam. Her work has been supported by Tin House, VONA, the Kenyon Review, Ragdale, Millay, and VCCA.
Winnie M. Li
Winnie M. Li is an American author, activist, and academic known for her work addressing sexual violence through literature and advocacy. A Harvard graduate, she worked as a film producer in London before her career was disrupted by a violent assault in 2008. This experience inspired her debut novel, Dark Chapter, a fictionalized account of the event from both victim and perpetrator perspectives, which won The Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize in 2017 and has been translated into ten languages. Her second novel, Complicit, published in 2022, draws upon her experiences in the film industry and explores themes highlighted by the #MeToo movement. Li is also the founder of the Clear Lines Festival, the UK’s first-ever festival addressing sexual assault through the arts and discussion.
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