*AN IMPORTANT UPDATE: THIS EVENT HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED FOR TUESDAY, APRIL 30TH*
Event features award-winning poet and New York Times-bestselling author of Minor Feelings, and award-winning local authors Su Hwang and Sun Yung Shin
North Hennepin Community College is honored to host NY Times bestselling author Cathy Park Hong as she discusses her book Minor Feelings: An Asian-American Reckoning with local authors Su Hwang and Sun Yung Shin on Tuesday, April 30, 6-8 p.m., in the Center for Business & Technology Grand Hall (CBT 195). In Minor Feelings, a widely celebrated book of essays, Hong provocatively infuses cultural criticism, history, and her own personal experience to reveal hard truths about the American racialized consciousness. In engaging and revealing talks, Hong speaks about race and Asian-American identity, utilizing the craft of poetry as a lens for social change, and the power of creative art that is influenced by politics, culture, and the current societal moment. This event is free and open to the community. Audience Q&A and author book signing will happen at the conclusion of the event. Light refreshments will be served. Advance registration is encouraged as seating capacity is limited to 200. The event will also be available via live stream.
Event Schedule
Tuesday, April 30, 6-8 p.m.
Located in the Center for Business & Technology Grand Hall (CBT 195)
- Moderated panel discussion, 6-7 p.m.
- Audience Q&A, 7-7:30 p.m.
- Book signing, 7:30-8 p.m.
- Click here to register
About the Authors
Cathy Park Hong’s New York Times bestselling book of creative nonfiction, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning, was published in Spring 2020 by One World/Random House and Profile Books (UK). Minor Feelings was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography, and earned her recognition on TIME’s 100 Most Influential People of 2021 list. She is also the author of poetry collections Engine Empire, published in 2012 by W.W. Norton, Dance Dance Revolution, chosen by Adrienne Rich for the Barnard Women Poets Prize, and Translating Mo'um. Hong is the recipient of the Windham-Campbell Prize, the Guggenheim Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Her prose and poetry have been published in the New York Times, New Republic, the Guardian, Paris Review, Poetry, and elsewhere. She is a full professor in English at UC Berkeley. (photo credit, New York Magazine)
Su Hwang is a poet, activist, stargazer, and the author of Bodega, published by Milkweed Editions, which received the 2020 Minnesota Book Award in poetry and was named a finalist for the 2021 Kate Tufts Discovery Award. She is the recipient of the inaugural Jerome Hill Fellowship in Literature, the Academy of America Poets James Wright Prize, and writer-in-residence fellowships to Dickinson House and Hedgebrook, among others. Her essay “Why the Rebellion Had to Begin Here,” originally published in Literary Hub, was included in the anthology There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love, published by Vintage Books in May 2021, edited by Tracy K. Smith and John Freeman. She is currently a teaching artist and Outreach Manager with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop (MPWW), and is the co-founder of Poetry Asylum with poet/educator/healer Sun Yung Shin. A daughter of Korean immigrants, who owned a dry cleaner and a small corner store for much of her childhood, her family left a rich literary legacy in Korea. Her mother was a teacher and her father was a journalist before immigrating to the United States in the early 1980s. Her uncle is poet Hwang Tong-gyu; and her grandfather, Hwang Sun-won (1915-2000) is a renowned author. His many literary achievements are still celebrated at Sonagi Village, a museum built in his honor and named after one of his most beloved short stories. Su lives in Minneapolis. (photo credit, The Rumpus)
신 선 영 Sun Yung Shin was born in Seoul, Korea and was raised in the Chicago area. She is a poet, writer, and cultural worker. She is the editor of What We Hunger For: Refugee and Immigrant Stories on Food and Family (2021) and of A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota, author of poetry collections The Wet Hex (winner of the Midland Authors Society Award for Poetry and finalist for a Minnesota Book Award) Unbearable Splendor (finalist for the 2017 PEN USA Literary Award for Poetry, winner of the 2016 Minnesota Book Award for poetry); Rough, and Savage; and Skirt Full of Black (winner of the 2007 Asian American Literary Award for poetry), co-editor of Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption, and author of bilingual illustrated book for children Cooper’s Lesson and picture book Where We Come From, co-written with Diane Wilson, Shannon Gibney, and John Coy. Her forthcoming picture book, Revolutions are Made of Love: Grace Lee Boggs and James Boggs, co-written with Mélina Mangal, will be published in 2025. She is a teaching artist with the Minnesota Prison Writing Project and elsewhere. She is a former MacDowell fellow and has received grants from the Bush Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, and the Minnesota State Arts Board. She lives in Minneapolis where she co-directs the community organization Poetry Asylum with poet Su Hwang. (photo credit, Uche Iroegbu)