Join us for an evening of literary discussions in honor of AAPI Heritage Month. We will be in conversation with authors Grace Talusan, Rishi Reddi, and Weina Dai Randel to talk about their work as it relates to representation, identity, culture and lived experiences. They will share their immigrant stories and their writing journey.  Author Anjali Mitter Duva will moderate this event.

A Q&A will follow. Light snacks will be available to complete the evening's cultural experience. Supplies are limited. We hope to see you!

In-person attendance is on a first-come basis.

This program is made possible by the generous donors to the Cary Library Foundation.

Anjali Mitter Duva is an Indian American writer, editor, and project manager raised in France. She is the author of the bestselling historical novel Faint Promise of Rain which was shortlisted for a William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. She is an instructor at Grub Street Writers and Fiction Co-Editor at Solstice: A Magazine of Diverse Voices. She was a Finalist for a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship. Anjali co-founded and runs the Arlington Author Salon, a quarterly literary series with a twist; runs a book club for teens; and was a co-founder of Chhandika, a non-profit organization that teaches and presents India's classical storytelling kathak dance. Anjali is a frequent speaker at conferences, festivals, libraries, schools and other cultural institutions. Educated at Brown University and MIT, she lives in the Boston area where she strives to be a good literary citizen.

Grace Talusan is the author of The Body Papers, which won the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing and the Massachusetts Book Award in Nonfiction. Her writing has been supported by the NEA, the Fulbright, US Artists, the Brother Thomas Fund, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. She has published in Creative Nonfiction, The New York Times, Boston magazine, The Boston Globe, and other outlets and anthologies, including Somewhere We Are Human. She teaches in the Nonfiction Writing Program at Brown University. Born in the Philippines and raised in New England, Talusan currently lives outside of Boston.

Rishi Reddi is the author of the novel Passage West, a Los Angeles Times “Best California Book of 2020” and Karma and Other Stories, which received the 2008 L.L. Winship /PEN New England Award for Fiction. Her short stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories, been broadcast on NPR, and earned honorable mention in the Pushcart Prize.  Her reviews, essays and translations have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, Kirkus Reviews, LitHub, Partisan Review, Alta Journal, and Air/Light, among others. Rishi has received fellowships and grants from the National Book Critics Circle, MacDowell Colony, Bread Loaf, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the U.S. Department of State. She lives in Cambridge, MA.

Weina Dai Randel is the award-winning author of four novels, Night Angels, The Last Rose of Shanghai, The Moon in the Palace and The Empress of Bright Moon. Weina is the winner of the RWA  RITA® Award, a National Jewish Book Awards finalist, and a two-time Goodreads Choice Awards Best Historical Fiction nominee. Her novels have been translated into thirteen foreign languages. Weina is also the recipient of the Mass Cultural Council’s art grant in 2023. She lives in Lexington with her family.