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Home
- About
- Community Organizations
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2026 Taiwanese American Memoir Book Club
- Book Club Discussion Guides
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Posted on Monday, November 17th, 2025 at 9:07 pm.

Written by Leona

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DEADLINE EXTENDED!! TaiwaneseAmerican.org is excit

DEADLINE EXTENDED!! TaiwaneseAmerican.org is excited to announce the 2026 Betty L. Yu and Jin C. Yu Creative Writing Prizes, created in collaboration with author Charles Yu to uplift and recognize Taiwanese American writers across generations.⁠
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What’s new / continuing in 2026⁠
• Four categories: Middle School, High School, College, & Adult⁠
• Guest Poetry Editor Averylin Cummins (Prize alum!)⁠
• Winners & finalists published on TaiwaneseAmerican.org + cash prize⁠
⁠
Deadline: Tuesday, March 17, 2026 at 11:59 PM PT⁠
Genres: fiction, poetry, personal essay, or creative nonfiction⁠
Eligible writers: Taiwanese heritage, significant connections to Taiwan, or Taiwanese/Taiwanese American subject matter⁠. Up to 5,000 words.⁠
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📝 Submit via Google Form: full guidelines & submission form in bio!

It’s been a few years since we shared a roundup

It’s been a few years since we shared a roundup of resources and readings commemorating the 228 Incident. This year, we’ve put together a short, curated update (with links to past, more comprehensive guides in the article).⁠
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We've also been thinking deeply about how "commemoration" is most useful as a dialogue between the past and the present. To that end, we've included accompanying reflection questions to help us articulate: what kind of relationship do we want to have with Taiwan, Taiwanese America, and the “great unfinished struggles” that continue to shape our lives? How does remembering these histories guide the way we live and engage today?⁠
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Linked here and in bio: https://www.taiwaneseamerican.org/2026/02/228-reflection-2026/

“Godfather of Taiwanese America” lore just dro

“Godfather of Taiwanese America” lore just dropped 👀
@taiwaneseam_org founder and prolific Taiwanese American community organizer HoChie Tsai @hochie71 was just a toddler when his family moved to the U.S. But unlike many immigrants, Tsai’s parents were fleeing political repression under martial law in Taiwan. Tsai talks about that legacy, and how that helped to shape his identity first as an Asian American activist and physician.
Listen on ICRT’s TAIWAN TALK, wherever you get your podcasts!
🔗: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-navigating-two-cultures-shaped-asian-american-activist/id572456881?i=1000751670270

Our March selection for our TAIWANESE AMERICAN MEM

Our March selection for our TAIWANESE AMERICAN MEMOIR BOOK CLUB is Ingrid Hu Dahl's SUN SHINING ON MORNING SNOW: A Memoir of Identity, Loss, and Living Boldly - with Ingrid joining us for a live Q&A!⁠
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Ingrid Hu Dahl, a mixed-race, queer woman, takes readers on an intimate journey through the challenges of self-discovery—navigating the weight of social, cultural and familial expectations. ⁠
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🖥️ Join us on Sunday, March 15 6PM PT for a guided discussion (Google Meets)! RSVP at the link in bio.⁠
📚We're pleased to partner with AAPI-led, mission-driven @yellowperilbooks to offer 10% off our memoir selections with code TABOOKCLUB10 and 5% off books by Taiwanese Americans with code TWNAMERICANS. 5% of proceeds from these texts will be donated to @taiwaneseam_org.⁠
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Tag us on your reading journey at @taiwaneseam_org #TABookClub!⁠

"We hadn’t meant to cry in the food court below

"We hadn’t meant to cry in the food court below Taipei — and during a Saturday lunch rush hour at that. ⁠
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Author Stefany Valentine @booksbystefany and I connected online in 2024 before she published her debut novel, First Love Language. As Asian American adoptees — her being Taiwanese American and me being Chinese American living in Taiwan — we bonded quickly over Taiwan and our longing for adoptee representation in young adult books. ⁠
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Fast forward one year and suddenly we were meeting in person in Taipei. When we first started chatting, I had been studying Mandarin in Tainan; Stefany was interested in learning Mandarin in Taiwan. Since then, right before First Love Language was released, Stefany is in reunion with her birth mother in Taiwan.⁠
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Now we’re both living in Taiwan: I work a corporate job in Taipei; Stefany studies Mandarin in Taoyuan while living with her birth mother.⁠
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A week before Stefany’s sophomore debut, Love Makes Mochi, was released on January 27, we met up at Taipei 101 to chat about (re)-learning Mandarin as adoptees in Taiwan. But what we didn’t expect were the tears... the feels from having a conversation with someone who just…gets it."⁠
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Read the full, exquisite conversation, linked here and in bio: https://www.taiwaneseamerican.org/2026/02/stefany-valentine-interview/⁠

Screenshots from two of our virtual events this mo

Screenshots from two of our virtual events this month! 2/15 - Taiwanese American Memoir Book Club! Our February pick was Michelle Kuo’s READING WITH PATRICK - and what a joy to have Michelle Kuo join us for a cozy, introspective discussion on finding and nurturing our inner child, writing and living ethically, and “being honest with our own contradictions.” Join us next month for Ingrid Hu Dahl’s SUN SHINING ON MORNING SNOW. 2/22 - Office Hours with Charlie! To build and encourage a writing community alongside the Betty L. Yu and Jin C. Yu Creative Writing Prizes, writer Charles Yu offered a live Q&A for emerging and established writers to share their works-in-progress, ask questions, and get to know each other.
We ended with two generative writing prompts:
1) Write a biography. Anyone you want.
2) Write something that begins: “The first time it happened...” Taiwanese American Memoir Book Club: https://www.taiwaneseamerican.org/projects/2026-memoir-book-club/
2026 Betty L. Yu and Jin C. Yu Creative Writing Prizes: https://www.taiwaneseamerican.org/2026/02/2026-creative-writing-prize/

We're pleased to share this beautiful personal ess

We're pleased to share this beautiful personal essay by Adela Wu, about returning to Taiwan after the death of her father.⁠
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"My dad was the only one who moved and started a new life in California, so far from his family and his home. From what I knew about his move and his life before I was born, he faced numerous challenges, from learning a foreign language to navigating the stress of opening a small business. He then lived with an aggressive type of brain tumor and suffered through numerous surgeries and treatments, while continuing work to support our family.
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'Why?' I wondered out loud to my aunt. 'Why did he do all that?'⁠
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'Ah, your father. He had an American Dream.'"⁠
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Read the full piece, linked here and in bio: https://www.taiwaneseamerican.org/2026/02/in-grief-returning-to-my-roots/⁠
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Adela Wu, MD, is a second-generation Chinese-Taiwanese American, neurosurgeon, writer, and illustrator, who currently lives in the Bay Area. She is currently working on a hybrid memoir about family, illness, culture, and grief.

TaiwaneseAmerican.org is excited to announce the 2

TaiwaneseAmerican.org is excited to announce the 2026 Betty L. Yu and Jin C. Yu Creative Writing Prizes, created in collaboration with author Charles Yu to uplift and recognize Taiwanese American writers across generations.⁠
⁠
What’s new / continuing in 2026⁠
• Four categories: Middle School, High School, College, & Adult⁠
• Virtual Office Hours with Charles Yu (Sun, Feb 22): live Q&A + generative writing (RSVP at link in bio - open to new & past participants!)⁠
• Guest Poetry Editor Averylin Cummins (Prize alum!)⁠
• Winners & finalists published on TaiwaneseAmerican.org + cash prize⁠
⁠
Deadline: Tuesday, March 10, 2026 at 11:59 PM PT⁠
Genres: fiction, poetry, personal essay, or creative nonfiction⁠
Eligible writers: Taiwanese heritage, significant connections to Taiwan, or Taiwanese/Taiwanese American subject matter⁠
⁠
📝 Submit via Google Form: full guidelines & submission form in bio!

We’re pleased to share this thoughtful, searchin $We’re pleased to share this thoughtful, searching essay by a guest contributor, who reflects on finding his own questions of identity and belonging unexpectedly mirrored in the 2004 film "National Treasure."⁠ ⁠ Particularly striking to us is his observation that “for waishengren families like [his], the treasure [of identity] includes the effort to make sense of a legacy often seen as complicated or inconvenient.” ⁠ ⁠ In sharing his work, we want to renew our commitment to better holding and refracting the many ways people arrive in and understand our community. Our thanks to this writer for sharing his story; we hope others will be inspired to do the same. Submission guidelines are available on our website.$

In REVOLUTIONARY TAIWAN, co-authors Catherine Chou

In REVOLUTIONARY TAIWAN, co-authors Catherine Chou and Mark Harrison write that “a coherent national Taiwanese story cannot be told in terms that will be understood within the international system,” an order in which Taiwan is said to possess neither territory nor history. Yet it is precisely this contradiction that animates the book’s most generative insights. Taiwanese identity here is not assumed, but historically chosen—“declared rather than assumed; not simply born but inculcated.”⁠
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In this interview, I speak with Catherine about what it means to write tenderly from within that contradiction, why Taiwan’s unfinished revolution deserves new political languages, and Revolutionary Taiwan’s place in the diasporic imagination.⁠
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To support #TaiwaneseAmericans in engaging with this history, we are hosting a giveaway for REVOLUTIONARY TAIWAN!⁠
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HOW TO ENTER:⁠
❤️FOLLOW us at @taiwaneseam_org⁠
❤️COMMENT "REVOLUTIONARY" to participate (one entry per person)⁠
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The winner must be based in the United States and willing to privately share a mailing address. The giveaway will run through 2/20/26; the winner will be announced in stories AND DM'ed from this account only.⁠
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This giveaway is not sponsored, endorsed, or administered by Instagram.⁠

As our annual Taiwanese American gift guides have

Shared brief thoughts with @taiwanplusnews about t

Shared brief thoughts with @taiwanplusnews about the escalating ICE violence in our communities and, further, the administration’s dishonesty about what they are doing, why they’re doing it, and who they’re doing it to. Taiwanese Americans are also an immigrant community. We do not have more protections than everybody else. We are not exempt from vulnerability to the same injustice, or deep concern for those already caught within it. Solidarity to our neighbors and the resilient people of Minnesota ❤️‍🩹
— EIC (thoughts are my own)

Our February selection for our TAIWANESE AMERICAN

Our February selection for our TAIWANESE AMERICAN MEMOIR BOOK CLUB is Michelle Kuo's READING WITH PATRICK: A Teacher, a Student and the Life-Changing Power of Books - with Michelle joining us for a live Q&A in the first 30 minutes! 😍😍😍⁠
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Kuo's memoir details her life-changing friendship with a gifted student, jailed for murder in the Mississippi Delta.⁠
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🖥️ Join us on Sunday, February 15 6PM PT for a guided discussion (Google Meets)! RSVP at the link in bio.⁠
🍿Our community discussion guide for January's pick, Kaila Yu's FETISHIZED, based on or virtual conversation, is up on TaiwaneseAmerican.org! ⁠
Look for our community discussion guide at the end of the month, based on our virtual meetup, to facilitate your own reading groups! ⁠
📚We're pleased to partner with AAPI-led, mission-driven @yellowperilbooks to offer 10% off our memoir selections with code TABOOKCLUB10 and 5% off books by Taiwanese Americans with code TWNAMERICANS. 5% of proceeds from these texts will be donated to @taiwaneseam_org.⁠
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Tag us on your reading journey at @taiwaneseam_org #TABookClub!

“It is not up to Xi. And it is not complicated.”⁠
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In her latest essay for @taiwaneseam_org, writer, translator, and comedian Vickie Wang @vickiefromtaiwan reflects on a lifetime shaped by the constant threat of war, and the overwhelming exhaustion of watching Taiwan treated as a bargaining chip by untrustworthy leaders and hot topic by exploitative pundits. ⁠
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Drawing from her lived experiences in China, Taiwan, and the United States, Wang wearily but firmly reasserts that Taiwan's sovereignty is not hypothetical, and Taiwan belongs to the Taiwanese people.⁠
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Read the full Perspectives piece, linked here and in bio: https://www.taiwaneseamerican.org/2026/01/taiwan-is-not-up-to-xi-vickie-wang/

We're pleased to share "In the Shadow of a Flag" b

We're pleased to share "In the Shadow of a Flag" by 2025 Betty L. Yu and Jin C. Yu Creative Writing Prize honorable mention (adult category) G.L. Blandford, described by the judges as "deeply personal" and "inspiring."⁠
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In this memoir-in-progress, Blandford writes: "This story is not an accusation, nor is it an apology. It is an exploration of the shadows we inherit and the truths we must reclaim. It is for those who live in the margins of identity, between nations, races, and the weight of untold stories.⁠
I used to live in the shadow of a flag, defined by lines I did not draw. Now I live in the light of lineage, one that flows like water and stands like rock. One that remembers what the world tries to forget. One that lets my children ride the currents between oceans and mountains, not to escape contradiction, but to become whole within it."⁠
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Read the full piece, linked here and in bio: https://www.taiwaneseamerican.org/2026/01/gl-blandford-memoir/

About

Founded in 2006, TaiwaneseAmerican.org is a web portal site highlighting many of the interesting people, events and organizations that make up Taiwanese America. It is both a volunteer-driven website and a non-profit organization that intends to connect and promote those who identify with the Taiwanese identity, heritage, or culture. By establishing our niche within the broader Asian Pacific American and mainstream communities, we hope to collectively contribute to the wonderful and diverse mosaic that America represents.

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