Thursday, March 25, 2010
The Asian American Writers' Workshop
Sometimes when you run away from something, you can find yourself surprised to end up at home. Join debut novelists Sonya Chung and Nami Mun as they read about characters on the run from exes, parents, and, that worst enemy, themselves. In Chung’s Long for this World, a war photographer and her father take refuge and rediscover their families in Korea. National Book Award finalist Kate Walbert calls it an “intricately structured and powerfully resonant portrait of lives lived at the crossroads of culture.” In Miles from Nowhere, we follow Joon-Mee, a 12 year old runaway, through 1980s New York, a landscape of escort clubs, addiction, petty crimes. Whiting Award-winner Alexander Chee has called Nami Mun “easily one of the most important new talents in American fiction.”
Sonya Chung’s short fiction, essays, and reviews have appeared in The Threepenny Review, BOMB Magazine, Crab Orchard Review, and Sonora Review, among other publications. She is a recipient of the Charles Johnson Fiction Award, a Pushcart Prize nomination, and the Bronx Council on the Arts Literary Fellowship and Residency.
Nami Mun currently lives and teaches in Chicago, was born in Seoul, South Korea, and grew up there and in Bronx, New York. She has worked as an Avon Lady, a street vendor, a photojournalist, a waitress, an activities coordinator for a nursing home, and a criminal defense investigator. After earning a GED, she went on to get a BA in English from UC Berkeley, and an MFA from University of Michigan, where she received the first place Hopwood Award for short fiction. Her debut novel, Miles from Nowhere (Riverhead), was shortlisted for the Orange Award and selected for Amazon’s Best Fiction of 2009 So Far, Indie Next, and Booklist “Editors’ Choice” as well as “Top Ten First Novels.” Named Best New Novelist of 2009 by Chicago magazine, she is a recipient of a Pushcart Prize and a 2009 Whiting Award.
The Asian American Writers' Workshop
Sometimes when you run away from something, you can find yourself surprised to end up at home. Join debut novelists Sonya Chung and Nami Mun as they read about characters on the run from exes, parents, and, that worst enemy, themselves. In Chung’s Long for this World, a war photographer and her father take refuge and rediscover their families in Korea. National Book Award finalist Kate Walbert calls it an “intricately structured and powerfully resonant portrait of lives lived at the crossroads of culture.” In Miles from Nowhere, we follow Joon-Mee, a 12 year old runaway, through 1980s New York, a landscape of escort clubs, addiction, petty crimes. Whiting Award-winner Alexander Chee has called Nami Mun “easily one of the most important new talents in American fiction.”
Sonya Chung’s short fiction, essays, and reviews have appeared in The Threepenny Review, BOMB Magazine, Crab Orchard Review, and Sonora Review, among other publications. She is a recipient of the Charles Johnson Fiction Award, a Pushcart Prize nomination, and the Bronx Council on the Arts Literary Fellowship and Residency.
Nami Mun currently lives and teaches in Chicago, was born in Seoul, South Korea, and grew up there and in Bronx, New York. She has worked as an Avon Lady, a street vendor, a photojournalist, a waitress, an activities coordinator for a nursing home, and a criminal defense investigator. After earning a GED, she went on to get a BA in English from UC Berkeley, and an MFA from University of Michigan, where she received the first place Hopwood Award for short fiction. Her debut novel, Miles from Nowhere (Riverhead), was shortlisted for the Orange Award and selected for Amazon’s Best Fiction of 2009 So Far, Indie Next, and Booklist “Editors’ Choice” as well as “Top Ten First Novels.” Named Best New Novelist of 2009 by Chicago magazine, she is a recipient of a Pushcart Prize and a 2009 Whiting Award.
