Between Tongues and Pages: New Asian Canadian Writing

Featuring: Wiley Ho and Jinwoo Park, moderated by Effie Pow

This panel brings together writers whose early manuscripts were recognized by the Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers Award and who have since transformed those works into published books that have achieved critical acclaim. These writers represent a new generation of Asian Canadian literature: bold in voice, formally inventive, and deeply attuned to questions of language, identity, migration, and belonging.

The panel explores what it means to write between languages, cultures, and literary traditions, and how an emerging work can evolve from manuscript to book. The authors reflect on the role of mentorship, community recognition, and literary validation in sustaining their creative journeys, as well as the challenges and possibilities of writing Asian diasporic stories in the contemporary literary landscape.

Rooted in the legacy of Jim Wong-Chu, whose lifelong commitment to nurturing new voices helped shape Asian Canadian literature, this conversation celebrates both artistic achievement and literary lineage, inviting audiences to witness how stories first written in the margins come to occupy the centre as they continue to reshape Canadian literature.

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Host or Publisher literASIAN Festival