T225.
Reclaiming the Asian Femme Body in Speculative Fiction
Thursday, March 9, 2023
3:20 pm to 4:35 pm
For centuries, the Asian femme body has been a fraught site of violence, colonization and objectification. How does speculative fiction allow us to reclaim and rewrite harmful and false narratives we never consented to? How can bodily transformation (into monsters, robots, mythological creatures and more) desexualize, reimagine and liberate the Asian femme body? The panelists will explore how writing speculative elements in their work creates space for subversive and transformative narratives.
Participants
Elaine Hsieh Chou is a Pushcart Prize–winning Taiwanese American writer from California. A Rona Jaffe Graduate Fellow at NYU and a NYFA Fellow, her debut novel, Disorientation, was published by Penguin Press, and her speculative short story collection, Where Are You Really From?, is forthcoming in 2024.
K-Ming Chang is a Kundiman fellow, a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree. She is the author of the New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice novel Bestiary (One World/Random House, 2020) and the forthcoming short story collection Gods of Want.
Isabel Yap is a Filipino author of fiction and poetry. Born and raised in Manila, she is currently based in the US. Her work was nominated for a Locus award and has appeared in venues including Tor.com, Lit Hub, and Year’s Best Weird Fiction. Her debut short story collection is Never Have I Ever.
Silvia Park is a Korean/American writer and visiting assistant professor at Oberlin College. Their work has appeared in Black Warrior Review, Tor.com, and The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, among others. Their debut novel is forthcoming from Simon & Schuster in 2024.
Ploi Pirapokin is a Thai-born, Hong Kong-raised extraordinary alien. She is the nonfiction editor at Newfound Journal, and is featured in Tor.com, Pleiades, Ninth Letter, Sycamore Review, Gulf Stream magazine, and more. She's a 2018 Clarion Writers Workshop graduate, and holds an MFA from SFSU.
