T174.
Slackers, Stoners, and Screw-Ups: APIA Writers on the Margins of the Margins
Thursday, February 8, 2024
12:10 pm to 1:25 pm
Most first- or second-gen APIA stories are tales of perseverance. The American Dream fulfilled. But what about everyone else: the slackers, stoners, and screw-ups? This panel is five creators, working in a variety of prose genres, who will discuss the personal and artistic choices that led them to writing about APIA people in the margins. The discussion will delve into conversations around the consideration of audience, upending of the model minority myth, and writing complicated characters.
Participants
Mark Galarrita is a graduate of the 2017 Clarion West Writers Workshop and the University of Alabama MFA program. His writing can be found in McSweeney’s, Electric Literature, Nightmare magazine, Split Lip, and elsewhere. Currently, he works at Scribner.
Gene Kwak is the author of Go Home, Ricky!, which received a starred review in Publisher's Weekly and was a Rumpus book club selection. He is also the winner of the 2022 Poets & Writers Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award. He is an assistant professor at Oklahoma State University.
Jean Kyoung Frazier is a writer living in Los Angeles. Pizza Girl is her debut novel. She also writes for television shows such as A24's Beef.
Jenn Alandy Trahan is a Jones Lecturer at Stanford University, where she teaches fiction, creative nonfiction, creative expression, and contemporary American short stories. Her work (featuring APIA slackers and screw-ups) has been published in Harper's, One Story, and Best American Short Stories.
