Asian American Writers' Workshop

Tuesday, March 17, 2009



Just wanted to post up on some of the programs and events that the Asian American Writers' Workshop is going to be having:

Saturdays, March 14 to April 25 (7 sessions)
Drawing in Color: Empowering Girls through Comics

The comic book world is often viewed as a boy's club. Drawing in Color aims to pop that text bubble by offering a space for young women of color to render their own narratives. Come learn more about this medium as Chitra Ganesh leads an examination of the gender and ethnic stereotypes contained in mainstream cartoons, comics, and mass media, in the process, write and draw your own unique empowered narratives in comic form.

Open to female youth grades 9-12, of all racial backgrounds. All participants are expected to commit to a six-session program and complete all assignments. Space will fill up quickly, so applicants are advised to contact us with the subject line "Drawing In Color" as soon as possible for more information. This youth program is FREE.

Chitra Ganesh was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, where she currently lives and works. Buried narratives and marginal figures typically excluded from official canons of history, literature, and art inspire her drawing, installation, text-based work, and collaborations.

Ganesh draws from a broad range of material, including the iconography of Hindu, Greek and Buddhist mythology, 19th century European portraiture and fairytales, song lyrics, as well as contemporary visual culture such as Bollywood posters, anime, and comic books. The process of automatic writing is central to her practice, and emerges from dissecting myths to retrieve critical moments of abjection, desire, and loss.

By layering disparate materials and visual languages, Ganesh considers alternate narratives of sexuality and power in a world where untold stories keep rising to the surface. In this process the body becomes a site of transgression, both social and psychic, doubled, dismembered and continually exceeding its limits.

This youth program is funded by The Asian Women Giving Circle.

@ The Workshop
16 West 32nd Street, 10th Floor
(btwn Broadway & 5th Avenue)

Free

Thursday, March 26, 7pm
Hari Kunzru and Porochista Khakpour

Khakpour reads from her debut, Sons and Other Flammable Objects and Kunzru reads from his latest, My Revolutions.

@ The Workshop
16 West 32nd Street, 10th Floor
(btwn Broadway & 5th Avenue)
$5 suggested donation; open to the public