Asian American Studies Lecture Series: Elaine Castillo and Jessica Hagedorn

Elaine Castillo: Photo by Amaal Said. Jessica Hagedorn: Photo by Helen Oji; background painting by Laura Owens

Celebrating New Asian American Writing

Elaine Castillo was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay area, where she graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a degree in comparative literature. America Is Not the Heart is her debut novel, and was named one of the best books of 2018 by NPR, San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Post, Kirkus Reviews, The New York Public Library, Real Simple, Lit Hub, The Boston Globe and more.

Jessica Hagedorn was born and raised in the Philippines and came to the United States in her early teens. Her novels include Toxicology, Dream Jungle, The Gangster of Love, and Dogeaters, winner of the American Book Award and a finalist for the National Book Award. Hagedorn is also the author of Danger and Beauty, a collection of poetry and prose, and the editor of three anthologies. Work for the stage includes adaptations of Dogeaters and The Gangster of Love, and numerous collaborations. Honors and prizes include a Theater Commissioning Award from the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation and William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction. She is presently working on a musical play about the pioneering all-female rock band Fanny.

In 2019-20, in cooperation with the Program in Creative Writing, the Lewis Center for the Arts, and the Department of English, the Asian American Studies Lecture Series is dedicated to contemporary Asian American letters, to showcase the recent explosion of Asian American creative writers and to highlight the expansive geopolitical diversity of what constitutes Asian American letters today.

The reading honors Filipino American History Month.