Celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month Writers

Recommendations from the PWN Community

This Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we’re highlighting a few Asian American books and writers who have inspired conversations within the Project Write Now community and who continue to shape the literary landscape in meaningful ways. From poetry and memoir to satire and novels in verse, these works remind us of the power of storytelling to illuminate both personal and collective truths.

We’re thrilled to recommend the work of Chen Chen, a two-time Pushcart Prize-winning poet whom we were honored to welcome for our Friends & Features event this month. Chen Chen writes through the lens of Asian American immigrant culture while strongly leaning into his uniquely queer perspective. His collections include Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency (2022) and When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (2017). His latest chapbook is Explodingly Yours. Many of his poems are available on his website or at poets.org.

We’re also excited to recommend Yellowface, R. F. Kuang’s sharp, fast-paced satire about cultural appropriation, the publishing industry, and whose stories get told. As PWN program director Elizabeth Jannuzzi shared: “Two thumbs up. R.F. Kuang wrote a villain so recognizable it should come with a warning label. I blew through this novel in a weekend and immediately wanted to press it into everyone’s hands.”

After participating in Book Revision Lab, participant and PWN’s program coordinator Lisa Hartsgrove was encouraged to read novels in verse that reflected stylistic elements similar to her own work. A top recommendation was Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhhà Lại, a moving story about a young Vietnamese girl and her family fleeing Saigon as the Vietnam War comes to an end. While Lisa’s novel explored a different subject matter, she found inspiration in Lai’s use of voice, structure, and poetic storytelling. She also really enjoyed the read!

Aimee Nezhukumatathil is another writer whose work continually inspires our community. Her poetry and essays, often rooted in the natural world, invite readers to slow down, notice beauty, and reconnect with wonder. We frequently turn to her writing as a way to spark vivid imagery, sensory detail, and reflection. We’re excited for her latest collection, Night Owl, examining the magic and sensory experiences of the night.

In 2023, our Memoir Incubator cohort read Crying in H Mart as part of a larger conversation about memoir craft. The bestselling memoir explores Michelle Zauner’s Korean American identity and the grief she experiences following her mother’s death. One of the most memorable discussions centered on the book’s food writing: some readers found the level of detail overwhelming, while others felt those descriptions carried the grief that the rest of the book couldn’t quite say out loud. The conversation became a reminder of how sensory details can hold memory, longing, and loss.

In our 2026 Memoir Incubator, guest instructor Shanda McManus brought in an excerpt from Ocean Vuong’s powerful piece “A Letter to My Mother That She Will Never Read,” originally published in The New Yorker. We used the essay to discuss the epistolary approach to memoir and the emotional intimacy that letter writing can create on the page. We are also huge fans of Vuong’s On This Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous and his more recent novel The Emperor of Gladness.

We also want to celebrate Arthur Sze, a renowned Asian American poet recently named U.S. Poet Laureate for a second term (2026–2027). Sze is the first Asian American poet to hold this position. We look forward to spending more time with his work and sharing it with our community.

This month—and every month—we’re grateful for the writers whose stories expand our understanding of what it means to be human. We hope these recommendations inspire you to discover a new voice or revisit a beloved story. And we invite you to share your favorite Asian American and Pacific Islander writers with us too!