Nita Noveno w/ Angela Garbes, MUD ON THE MOON

Mud on the Moon intertwines a daughter's exploration of her Filipino immigrant father's obscured past with a reimagined version of his story
About this Event

Educator and writer Nita Noveno discusses her new memoir Mud on the Moon, a hybrid memoir that weaves a daughter’s journey of discovering her Filipino immigrant father’s hidden past with imaginative storytelling, offering a look into migration, identity, and the intergenerational legacies that shape who we are. She’ll be joined by Seattle writer Angela Garbes.

Mud on the Moon is a hybrid memoir that intertwines a daughter's exploration of her Filipino immigrant father's obscured past with a reimagined version of his untold story.

Born in Southeast Alaska, Nita Noveno traces the legacy of her father, who arrived in the US in 1928 as part of a wave of Filipino men seeking better opportunities through manual labor in agriculture and other industries. The book alternates between Nita's coming-of-age story and imagined chapters of her father's life, revealing the gaps and silences that lie between their experiences. With a blend of personal and historical imagery, Mud on the Moon offers a rare glimpse into the lives of Filipino immigrants in America. It is a meditation on how family, memory, and identity are shaped by the stories we inherit, both spoken and unspoken, across generations.

"A beautiful story of a daughter in the act of knowing her father. . . . stitching and restitching memories, records, artifacts, history, mystery, and fiction.”—Ananda Lima, author of Mother/land

Nita Noveno is the recipient of the 2024 Women's Prose Prize from Red Hen Press for her hybrid memoir Mud on the Moon (August 2026). A graduate of The New School's MFA Creative Writing Program, her creative nonfiction and hybrid work has appeared in MĀNOA, Hippocampus, The Margins, and elsewhere. She teaches creative nonfiction, composition, and literature at Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY, and is the founder and host emeritus of Sunday Salon, a long-running New York City reading series. The child of Filipino immigrant parents, she grew up in Southeast Alaska and now lives in Queens, NY.

Angela Garbes is the author of Like a Mother and Essential Labor. Essential Labor, called “a landmark and a lightning storm” by The New Yorker, was named a Best Book of the Year by both The New Yorker and NPR. Her third book, a memoir titled Never Too Much, will be published by Flatiron in April 2027. She lives with her family in Seattle.