Join us in celebrating AAPI Heritage Month in May 2022!

Young AAPI and other creatives ~ have you always had a burning desire to tell your stories and the stories of your family/community? Have you sometimes gotten discouraging messages about going into the arts, rather than some other line of work?

Join playwright and educator Amanda L. Andrei; poet, translator, editor, and graphic artist Naoko Fujimoto; and mom, educator, knitter, and Affrilachian poet Danni Quintos in a reading/panel and conversation with VA Poet Laureate Luisa A. Igloria. Featured writers will read and share from their work, offer encouragement and insights as they reflect on the circumstances and influences that made an impact on their choices as AAPI creatives.

Register to attend on Zoom

Poet Bios:

Amanda L. Andrei is an award-winning Filipina Romanian American playwright residing in Los Angeles by way of Virginia/Washington DC. She writes epic, irreverent plays that center the concealed, wounded places of history and societies from the perspectives of diasporic Filipina women. Her work has been developed with Echo Theatre, The Vagrancy, Pasadena Playhouse, Playwrights Arena, Artists at Play, La MaMa, Relative Theatrics, Parity Productions, Southeastern European Film Festival, and more. MFA: USC, MA: Georgetown.

Naoko Fujimoto was born and raised in Nagoya, Japan. She was an exchange student at Indiana University South Bend. Recent work appears or is forthcoming in POETRY, The Margins, Kenyon Review, Columbia Journal, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Prairie Schooner, Crazyhorse, and The Arkansas International. She is the author of Glyph: Graphic Poetry=Trans.Sensory (Tupelo Press, 2021), Where I Was Born(Willow Publishing, 2019), and four chapbooks. She is an editor at RHINO Poetry and Tupelo Quarterly.

This program of VA Poet Laureate Luisa A. Igloria was made possible with support from the Academy of American Poets, the Mellon Foundation, The Poetry Society of Virginia, and The Muse Writers Center.

Please note: This class or event will be held online (using Zoom or a similar live platform). To participate, students or attendees should have a stable internet connection. Class participants: you should have a computer or device with a webcam and microphone; and your Zoom link will be automatically sent to you after you register. Check your spam box if you don't see it.