R122. Expat Writers in and from Asia: Questioning the Term "Expatriate"

Room 206A, Henry B. González Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Thursday, March 5, 2020
9:00 am to 10:15 am

 

White writers living overseas are called “expatriate” writers, whereas writers of color are often described as “immigrants,” which raises the question of how privilege informs a writer's experience in a new country. This panel interrogates the nature of the expatriate writer today and whether the term “expatriate” is meaningful or misleading. Five writers from the U.S., Thailand, and the Philippines share their experiences living overseas and wrestling with their position in their newfound home.


Outline & Supplemental Documents

Event Outline: AWP_Event_Outline_(Expat_Writers.__.__.)__.docx
Supplemental Document 1: Why_are_white_people_expats_(The_Guardian)_Koutonin_(13_March_2015).pdf
Supplemental Document 2: Well_Always_Have_Paris_(Literary_Hub)_Holt_(7_August_2019).pdf

Participants

Moderator:

Sybil Baker's most recent works are Immigration Essays and While You Were Gone (novel). She teaches at UT Chattanooga (A&S Teaching Award), VCFA's low-residency International MFA, and the Yale Writer's Workshop. She is on the editorial board of UT Press. 

Collier Nogues's poetry collections are The Ground I Stand On Is Not My Ground and On the Other Side, Blue. She is a PhD fellow at the University of Hong Kong and curates Hong Kong's English-medium poetry craft talk series. She edits poetry for Juked and Tongue magazines.

Lawrence Lacambra Ypil is author of The Experiment of the Troipcs (winner of the Gaudy Boy Poetry Prize) and The Highest HIding Place. He received an MFA in nonfiction writing from the University of Iowa and an MFA in poetry from Washington University in St Louis. He teaches at Yale-NUS College.

Ploi Pirapokin's work is featured in Tor.com, Apogee Journal, The Offing, The Bellingham Review, and more. She teaches at the writer's program at UCLA Extension, Creative Nonfiction Foundation, University of Hong Kong, and is assistant director at the School of the Arts' creative writing department.

Robin Hemley

#AWP24

February 7–10, 2024
Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City Convention Center