2024 WRITER IN RESIDENCE: #ASIANFAIL: How to Fail Spectacularly (At Writing)
THURSDAY | OCTOBER 17, 2024 | 7PM – 9PM MST
IN PERSON
RGO Treehouse, 4th Floor cSpace
AWCS Members: FREE
Non-Members: $7
#ASIANFAIL: How to Fail Spectacularly (At Writing)
In 2009, I was diagnosed with a rare neurological disorder that prevented me from reading and writing. With some difficulty, I managed to earn an MFA from Columbia University. After I wrote a memoir, it was rejected by hundreds of agents and thirteen publishers because it was considered “too weird,” “too dark,” and “too niche.”
Employed, broke, and suffering from on again off again vertigo, I became depressed and anxious. It turned out failing repeatedly in my personal and professional life was how I learned to develop the necessary resilience, courage, tenacious grit, and confidence to find my writer’s voice, despite various set-backs. In this presentation, I’ll share some tough real-world advice about my journey to publication and how I discovered a wealth of mentors and a supportive literary community along the way. I’ll also discuss surviving as a new writer and impart what I wish I had known before embarking on a writing/publishing path.
