Join AAWW for a celebration of Mothersalt by Mia Ayumi Malhotra and Becoming Ghost by Cathy Lin Che, featuring readings by Sahar Muradi and Eugenia Leigh!

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Mia Ayumi Malhotra is the author of MOTHERSALT (Alice James Books, 2025) and ISAKO ISAKO, a California Book Award finalist and winner of the Alice James Award, Nautilus Gold Award for Poetry, National Indie Excellence Award, and Maine Literary Award. She is also the author of the chapbook NOTES FROM THE BIRTH YEAR, winner of the Bateau Press Chapbook Contest. Mia’s work has received the Hawker Prize for Southeast Asian Poetry and the Singapore Poetry Prize, and she is a Kundiman Fellow and founding member of The Ruby SF, a gathering space for women, transfeminine, and nonbinary artists. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she teaches poetry and writes about music and the interior life.

Cathy Linh Che is a writer and multidisciplinary artist. She is the author of Becoming Ghost (Washington Square Press, 2025), Split (Alice James Books) and co-author, with Kyle Lucia Wu, of the children’s book An Asian American A to Z: a Children’s Guide to Our History (Haymarket Books). Her video installation Appocalips is an Open Call commission with The Shed NY, and her film We Were the Scenery won the Short Film Jury Award: Nonfiction at the Sundance Film Festival. She teaches as Core Faculty in Poetry at the low residency MFA program in Creative Writing at Antioch University in Los Angeles and works as Executive Director at Kundiman. She lives in New York City.

Sahar Muradi is author of the collection OCTOBERS, selected by Naomi Shihab Nye for the 2022 Donald Hall Prize for Poetry and a finalist for the National Poetry Series. She is author of the chapbooks [ G A T E S ], Ask Hafiz, and A Garden Beyond My Hand, and co-editor, with Seelai Karzai, of EMERGENC(Y): Writing Afghan Lives Beyond the Forever War, An Anthology of Writing from Afghanistan and its Diaspora. Her writing has been supported by Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Bethany Arts Community, Blue Mountain Center, and Sustainable Arts Foundation. Sahar lives in New York City, where she directs the arts education programs at City Lore and dearly believes in the bottom of the rice pot.

Eugenia Leigh is a Korean American poet and the author of Bianca (Four Way Books, 2023) and Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows (Four Way Books, 2014). Her poems and essays have appeared in numerous publications including TIME, The Nation, Poetry, Ploughshares, Waxwing, and the Best of the Net anthology. Eugenia serves as a Poetry Editor at The Adroit Journal and as Valentines Editor at Honey Literary. http://www.eugenialeigh.com

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COMMUNITY CARE & ACCESSIBILITY

At AAWW, the safety and comfort of our community is our top priority. We invite you to practice intentionality and care in your behavior and language when engaging with our programs and with each other. Violence of any kind, including but not limited to racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, ageism, class or casteism, bigotry or bias toward religion or faith, or any action or assault against marginalized identities, is not tolerated. Those who bring harm to our community in person or online are not welcome, and will be asked to exit the space.

The event will be live streamed on Zoom with auto captioning for those who cannot join us in person. For those joining us in person, we are located on the 18 West 21st Street, Suite 900, there is an elevator that will take you directly to our office. Masks are strongly encouraged for audience members for all AAWW events; if you forget yours, one will be provided for you. We have two commercial grade air purifiers. We highly encourage all in person guests to take a COVID test at home prior to the event. If you have had COVID or have had known contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID in the 10 days prior, we ask you tune in for the live stream instead. Please reach out to msaleh@aaww.org for additional accessibility requests, including ADA accessible bathrooms, chairs with added back support, and beyond. This space is for YOU!