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Have you got your tickets yet to the explorASIAN gala?  This festival closing annual presents an evening of Iranian cuisine, performances, cocktails, dancing, raffle and auction from 6:00 to 11:00 pm on Friday, May 29. Featured will be vocalist Soley with the Vashan Ensemble and dancer Lia Fallah.

Recognized for their fine community work will be Tri Cities Iranian Cultural Society, Society of Iranian Canadian Professionals and Persian Cultural and Art Institute
Tickets are $50 plus a $3.50 service charge if purchased online or at the box office on the day of the event.

Attention aspiring and budding novelists! Are you working on a manuscript or have one almost ready? Here’s your chance to be published. The Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop (ACWW) has revived its long awaited Emerging Writers Award. 

2015—Fiction

The ACWW Emerging Writers Award (EWA) was established in 1999 to help authors of Pacific Rim Asian heritage be published with an established publishing house. The winner of the first award was poet, Rita Wong (Monkeypuzzle, published by Press Gang.) Madeleine Thien won the second award in 2001 for her short story collection, Simple Recipes. This manuscript impressed McClelland & Stewart so much that they offered Madeleine a two-book deal. Simple Recipes went on to win the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, the City of Vancouver Book Prize, and was a finalist in the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book.

The Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop is the publisher of Ricepaper Magazine and literASIAN: A Festival of Pacific Rim Asian Canadian Writing Festival. Formed in 1995, it was created out of a need to develop and nurture Pacific Rim Asian Canadian writers. Its primary purpose is to foster a community of writers and build a literature. In 2015, ACWW will celebrate its twentieth anniversary.

The ACWW Emerging Writer Award is a community building initiative of the Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop to encourage the development of quality manuscripts and finished works by new writers in our community.

The 2015 competition is for a book-length manuscript of fiction by a Asian-Canadian writer of Pacific Rim Asian heritage who has not previously published a book-length work of fiction in traditional or digital form.

The Author
The author must be a Canadian of Pacific Rim Asian heritage (e.g. East Asian or Southeast Asian descent) and not previously self-published or traditionally published a book-length work of fiction. After a manuscript is submitted to the EWA competition, the author agrees not to submit the work to any publishers until after the manuscript has been released from the EWA competition in October 2015. Receipt and release of the manuscript will be acknowledged in a timely fashion.

The Jury
This year’s jury members are Carellin Brooks, Glenn Deer, and Karen Shigeno. If there is no work of sufficiently high quality, the jury may decide that there is no winner.

The Publisher
Publishers will be offered the winning manuscript for consideration. If a publisher wishes to offer a contract to the winning author, a detailed letter of intent will be submitted to the ACWW.   The letter should include the following:

1) intended publication date (season and year)
2) proposed advance against royalties
3) description of proposed editorial commitment/vision
4) description of proposed promotional plans
5) sample contract and a copy of the publisher’s most recent catalogue

The publisher will include acknowledgement of the Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop Emerging Writer Award in the finished book as well as on press releases and advertisements. Should a successful contract be concluded, the ACWW will help promote the book.

Deadline for manuscripts: must be postmarked by July 31, 2015.

1) Completed application form (download for attachment).
2) $25.00 registration fee that also entitles the entrant to a year’s subscription to Ricepaper Magazine as well as membership in ACWW.  Cheque written out to: Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop Society.
3) three print copies of the manuscript in addition to a digital copy to be sent to: submissions@asiancanadianwriters.ca

Please send submissions to:
ACWW Emerging Writing Award Fiction 2015
P.O. Box 74174
Vancouver, British Columbia
V5V 5C8

Announcement of Winner
The winner will be announced at during the 2015 literASIAN: A Festival of Pacific Rim Asian Canadian Writing Festival Oct 8 – 11, 2015.

For queries and media contact
Jim Wong-Chu: wongchu@shaw.ca or 604.355.5795

Julia Lin: contact@julialinbooks.com

Gung Haggis Fat Choy Dinner 2015 Postponed

Thank you for your interest in Gung Haggis Fat Choy 2015.   The event has been postponed until further notice.  Thank you all for your well wishes.  Todd will be back and hungrier than ever, please stay tuned for more news  . . . here at Gung Haggis 2015!

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What Happens when you celebrate the Pioneer cultures and history of BC all together in one night?

Did you know that the first Govenor of BC, James Douglas, was born in Demarara.  Guyana – the Caribbean? His father was Scottish, and young James was educated in Lanark Scotland, and later worked for the Hudson’s Bay Company

We’ll continue to celebrate the fusion of the Scottish Robbie Burns Day and Chinese New Year cultures and traditions, to recognize the first non-native cultural pioneers of this province. The Scots came from the Far East, across the Atlantic, as the first White explorers, such as Alexander Mackenzie and Simon Fraser. And the Chinese traveled from the Far West across the Pacific, first as Buddhist Monks, identifying a land to the East of China as “Fusang”.

Every year we celebrate with a mix of culinary cuisine featuring deep-fried haggis wonton and haggis dim sum, as well as traditional haggis served with Chinese vegetarian lettuce wrap.

literASIAN 2013 just wrapped up – friends, family, authors, all joined together to celebrate the accomplishments of Asian Canadian writing.

Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop (ACWW) originated as a group of writers who wanted to get published. Together they read and critiqued each others’ work in honing their craft.

In 1996, a few from the group decided to register as a society and become a formal organization where they could obtain grants to help with author readings, writing workshops, and eventually a newsletter (that became Ricepaper Magazine).

By 1999, the group created the Emerging Writers’ Award, which awarded the best unpublished manuscript with the opportunity to be published with an established publisher. A decade later, the evolution of the literASIAN became a reality.