Upcoming Events
Fighting Tropes, Changing Narratives: BIPOC Adoptee Writers Break Out
Susan Ito, Shannon Gibney, Ansley Moon, Alice Stephens, Angela Tucker
Thursday, March 27, 2025
9:00 a.m. – 10:15 a.m. PT
Room 501ABC, Los Angeles Convention Center, Level Two
BIPOC adoptee writers who write against popular adoption tropes challenge deeply ingrained yet damaging narratives. Adoption is a popular literary theme, addressing what it is to be human and have a family. Yet adoption-focused writing has been dominated by adoptive parents or the adoption industry, leaving adopted people marginalized. This diverse panel of BIPOC adoptee writers will read poetry, memoir, fiction and nonfiction and discuss why and how they write to reframe the adoption narrative.
Understories & Mycocosms: Tapping Hidden Networks
Sarah Audsley, Lesley Wheeler, Anna Maria Hong, Amarnath Ravva, Asali Solomon
Thursday, Mar 27, 2025
10:35 AM - 11:50 AM PDT
Location: Room 403A, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center
How do we tap into networks outside of established power structures in precarious times and spaces to connect with allies and advocates? What cues can we take from the remarkable pathways ignited by trees, fungi, and other species in activating our understories? Writers, editors, organizers, and producers will reveal literature’s Wood Wide Web, talking about the tales beneath the tales that animate our writing and how symbiosis can circumvent and subvert obstacles to nourish literary lives.
Beyond Definitions of Diaspora: Korean Women Poets Breaking & Building Poetics
Sarah Audsley, Eugenia Leigh, Ae Hee Lee, Tiana Nobile, Rosanna Oh
Thursday, March 27, 2025
1:45 PM - 3:00 PM PDT
Room 410, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center
Korean American women poets will offer their insights on what it means to break and build poetic identities, to move beyond perceived definitions of Korean diaspora, displacement, kinship, and (un)belonging. Korean women poets’ contributions to contemporary American poetry will be highlighted through their individual contributions, and will demonstrate how their work advances the field. Each poet will read a poem, which will be followed by a moderated discussion.
KAAN 2025 in Atlanta, GA
"The Adoptee Consciousness Memoir Writing Workshop"
Co-led by Alice Stephens and Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello
June 20-22, 2025
Cherry Tree Young Writers Workshop
Featured Poetry Faculty: Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello
July 15-18, 2025
Past Events
2024 AWP in Kansas City
(Re)Vision: Creating a Sustainable Writing Community
Tiana Nobile, Sarah Audsley, Tamiko Beyer, Dharani Persaud
Crafting Unforgettable Characters—a Writer’s Guide to Storytelling
Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry, Jen Fawkes, Raul Palma, Matthew Salesses, Caroline Kim
How Book Reviewing is Changing and Why it Matters
Martha Anne Toll, Ericka Taylor, Tope Folarin, Alice Stephens
Vision & Re-Vision: Teaching Revision in University & Community Workshops
Sarah Browning, Maya Marshall, Matthew Salesses, Allison Joseph, Sara Henning
Collaborating in Korean: The Value of Co-Translating
Jack Jung, Jeanine Walker, Jaekwan Shim, Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello, Michael Joseph Walsh
2023 AWP in Seattle
Off-Site Reading: Growing From Our Roots: An Asian Debut Authors Showcase
Organized by Joshua Nguyen & Susan Nguyen with Sarah Audsley
They Rise Like a Wave: An Anthology of Asian American Women Poets
Christine Kitano, Alycia Pirmohamed, Paul Tran, Manahil Bandukwala, Sarah Audsley
"Memory that Pricks the Skin": Five Asian Women Poets Writing About History
Marianne Chan, Cynthia Dewi-Oka, Jessica Stark, Emily Jungmin Moon, Tiana Nobile
Beyond BTS & Squid Games: Korean Contemporary Poetry in Translation
Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello, Jeanine Walker, Stine An, E. Bok Lee, Emily Jungmin Yoon
Adoptee Representation Is a Human Rights Issue
Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello, Alice Stephens, Ansley Moon, Sarah Audsley, Tiana Nobile
Uprooted/Unrooted: Adopted & Donor-conceived Poets Rewriting Family
Stacey Balkun, Lori Desrosiers, Lee Herrick, Leah Silvieus
2022 AWP (virtual)
“Who Are Adoptees and Who Has the Right to Write about Them?”
Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello, Ansley Moon, Tiana Nobile, Leah Silvieus
2019 New Orleans Poetry Festival
“Adoptee Book Club: On Fostering Community and Kinship”
Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello, Ansley Moon, Tiana Nobile
2019 AWP in Portland
"Adopted Korean Women Writers: History Shapes Our Writing Journey"
Julayne Lee, Tiana Nobile, Leah Silvieus, SooJin Pate, Kim Sunee
2018 Association of Asian American Studies in San Francisco
"Reclaiming the Adoption Narrative in Asian American Poetry"
Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello, Ansley Moon, Tiana Nobile, Leah Silvieus