Asian American/Pacific Islander Heritage Month
Here are some AAPI writers of note
Bad, Bad Girl by Gish Jen, not yet published (Oct. 21, 2025; Knopf, NetGalley)
A very rocky mother-daughter relationship between a Chinese born mother and an American born daughter, with expectations and disappointments leading to the mother often scolding her strong willed daughter:
"Bad, bad girl. You don't know how to talk."
(See my full review here )
Gish Jen, author of 38 books, grew up in New York, where she spoke more Yiddish than Chinese. She has been featured in a PBS American Masters program on the American novel. She has received: National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a Guggenheim fellowship, a Fulbright fellowship, and a Radcliffe Institute fellowship; a Lannan Literary Prize in 1999 and an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2003. Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009, she has published in many magazines.
My Life: Growing Up Asian in America, thirty pieces edited by CAPE, April 25, 2023; MTV Books
Book description:
There are 23 million people, representing more than twenty countries, each with unique languages, histories, and cultures, clumped under one Asian American. Though their experiences are individual, certain commonalities appear.
Through a series of essays, poems, and comics, thirty creators give voice to moments that defined them and shed light on the immense diversity and complexity of the Asian American identity.
The Girls of Good Fortune by Kristina McMorris, not yet published (May 20, 2025; Sourcebooks Landmark, NetGalley
Description:
Portland, 1888. Amid the subterranean labyrinth of the notorious Shanghai Tunnels in Portland, a woman awakens in an underground cell, drugged and disguised.
Celia soon realizes she's a "shanghaied" victim on the verge of being shipped off as forced labor, leaving behind those she loves most. Although well accustomed to adapting for survival—being half-Chinese, passing as white during an era fraught with anti-Chinese sentiment—she fears that far more than her own fate lay at stake.
Kristina splits her time between San Diego and Portland, Oregon, where she’s the mom of two teenage boys who recently stripped her of her longstanding boast of being “tall for an Asian.”
Description:
A beguiling debut novel about finding oneself after heartbreak.
After suffering her first big heartbreak two years earlier, Penelope Lin has built a quiet life with no romantic entanglements. She spends her days cataloging a museum’s vast collection of Qing Dynasty bound-foot shoes and in the company of close friends. One day, she meets Hoang, who confesses to releasing mice from the cancer research lab where he works. Hoang’s openness catches Penelope off guard; from then on, her carefully constructed life slowly starting to unravel.
Naomi Xu Elegant is a writer and journalist living in New York City. Her first novel, Gingko Season, will be published on May 20, 2025 by W.W. Norton.
Transplants by Daniel Tam-Claiborne, May 13, 2025; Regalo Press, NetGalley
Description:
A poignant novel of two young women in pursuit of kinship and self-discovery who yearn to survive in a world that doesn’t know where either of them belongs.
On a university campus in rural Qixian, Lin and Liz form an unlikely friendship. Lin is a Chinese student closer to her menagerie of pets than to her peers, and Liz, a Chinese American teacher grieving her mother’s sudden death. They’re each met with hostility on campus—Lin by her classmates, who mock her for dating a white foreigner; Liz by her fellow English teachers, who exploit their privilege.
Alternating between Liz and Lin’s perspectives, it is a lyrical and moving exploration of race, love, power, and freedom that reveals how our differences may bring us closer than we might ever imagine.
These are just a handful of the Asian American Pacific Islander authors currently being published. Have you read any books by AAPI writers?
What are you reading now?
Memes: The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves
