2020 Kundiman Retreat Applications Are Now Open!

"I've always heard, read, and spoken about the importance of community in any artistic endeavor. The poet's road can be a lonely one; the drifting heart needs its anchors. But I never realized how empowering a community of artists could be until I spent four days with the Kundiman staff, teachers, and Fellows. I found there what I failed to find in my MFA program, or in any other poetry workshop I've taken: a deep respect and honor among poets; a desire to talk about race, identity, and history, in conjunction with one's composition process; and a willingness to be brave, to fail, and to look silly." ––Brynn Saito, Kundiman Retreat Fellow

Applications are now open for the 2020 Kundiman Retreat! With Master Classes and Mentorship from six nationally renowned Asian American poets and fiction writers, the Kundiman Retreat works to mentor the next generation of Asian American writers.

• Location: Fordham University, Rose Hill Campus
• Retreat Dates: June 24th–June 28th
• Application Period: December 1st–January 15th

Fiction Faculty: Nayomi Munaweera, Madeleine Thien, & Vu Tran

Poetry Faculty: Jenny Boully, Philip Metres, & Matthew Olzmann

Find out more about the application process here. You can also read more testimonials from past and current Fellows.

Good luck, and we're so excited to read your submissions!

Kundiman Presents Our 2020 Retreat Faculty!

Get your applications ready: The 2020 Retreat is coming up! We're thrilled to share our faculty for the next Retreat with you.

For Fiction, Nayomi Munaweera, Madeleine Thien, and Vu Tran will be teaching. In Poetry, we have Jenny Boully, Philip Metres, and Matthew Olzmann. We're so excited for the 2020 Fellows to be in community with these talented writers this June!

The Retreat will take place at the Fordham University Rose Hill Campus from June 24th to June 28th. Applications will be open from December 1st–January 15th.

FICTION

Nayomi Munaweera is a critically acclaimed, internationally award-winning novelist. Amongst many honors, her debut novel Island of a Thousand Mirrors won the Commonwealth Book Prize for the Asian Region while her second novel What Lies Between Us, won the Sri Lankan National Book Award. She is published extensively in print and on-line.The Huffington Post has raved, “Munaweera’s prose is visceral and indelible, devastatingly beautiful-reminiscent of the glorious writings of Louise Erdrich, Amy Tan and Alice Walker, who also find ways to truth-tell through fiction.” The New York Times Book Review has called her work, “incandescent.” She lives in Oakland where she is finishing her third novel, a psycho-sexual literary thriller.

Madeleine Thien is the author of four books, including Dogs at the Perimeter, and a story collection, Simple Recipes. Her most recent novel, Do Not Say We Have Nothing, was shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize, the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and The Folio Prize; and won the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor-General’s Literary Award for Fiction. The novel was named a New York Times Critics’ Top Book of 2016 and long-listed for a Carnegie Medal. Madeleine's books have been translated into twenty-five languages and her essays and stories have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Brick, frieze, Granta, and elsewhere. She lives in Montreal and is a Professor of English at Brooklyn College.

Vu Tran's first novel, Dragonfish, was a NY Times Notable Book and a San Francisco Chronicle Best Books of the Year. His short fiction has appeared in the O. Henry Prize Stories, the Best American Mystery Stories, Ploughshares, and other publications. He is the winner of a Whiting Writers’ Award and an NEA Fellowship, and has been a fellow at Bread Loaf, Sewanee, MacDowell, and Yaddo. Born in Vietnam and raised in Oklahoma, Vu received his MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and his PhD from the Black Mountain Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He is a criticism columnist for the Virginia Quarterly Review, and is currently an Assistant Professor of Practice in English & Creative Writing at the University of Chicago, where he is also Director of Undergraduate Studies.

POETRY

Jenny Boully is the author of Betwixt-and-Between: Essays on the Writing Life. Her previous books include not merely because of the unknown that was stalking toward them, The Book of Beginnings and Endings: Essays, [one love affair]*, of the mismatched teacups, of the single-serving spoon: a book of failures, and The Body: An Essay. A ลูกครึ่ง (half-child), she was born in Thailand and grew up on the southwest side of San Antonio, Texas. She attended Hollins University, where she double majored in English and Philosophy and then went on to earn an MA in English Criticism and Writing. Her other degrees include an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Notre Dame and a Ph.D. in English from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Philip Metres has written ten books, including Shrapnel Maps (Copper Canyon 2020), Sand Opera (Alice James 2015), Pictures at an Exhibition (2016), and The Sound of Listening: Poetry as Refuge and Resistance (2018), among others. Awarded the Lannan Fellowship, three Arab American Book Awards, two NEAs, and the Adrienne Rich Award, he is professor of English and director of the Peace, Justice, and Human Rights program at John Carroll University.

Matthew Olzmann is the author of two collections of poems, Mezzanines, which was selected for the 2011 Kundiman Prize, and Contradictions in the Design, both from Alice James Books. His third book, Constellation Route, is forthcoming in January 2022. He’s received fellowships from Kundiman, the Kresge Arts Foundation and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. His poems, stories, and essays have appeared in Best American Poetry, Kenyon Review, New England Review, Necessary Fiction, Brevity, Southern Review and elsewhere. He teaches at Dartmouth College and in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.

Kundiman Featured on Poetry Foundation's VS Podcast

VS Podcast Live event at the 2019 Asian American Literature Festival. Photo by Kyle Lucia Wu.

VS Podcast, a bi-weekly poetry podcast hosted by Danez Smith and Franny Choi, released an episode recorded live at the 2019 Asian American Literature Festival. The episode featured Kundiman’s Executive Director Cathy Linh Che and co-founders Joseph O. Legaspi and Sarah Gambito.

Each guest read two poems and discussed topics such as love, solidarity, queerness, and poetry. Che, Legaspi, and Gambito also spoke on Kundiman’s mission, emphasizing the sense of generosity and care that is nurtured within its community. When asked about passing along Kundiman to new leadership, Gambito responded:

“The number one reason why nonprofits fail is founder’s syndrome. I love Kundiman so much, I can’t let that happen–– Joseph and I can’t let that happen. I think part of bringing up a leader, it’s bringing up other leaders. It can’t just be about you. You have to understand how [Kundiman] has a life and breath of its own, and to find guardians, and people with imagination that are aligned with you.”

Listen to the episode here!

VS Podcast Live event at the 2019 Asian American Literature Festival. Photo by Hannah Colen.

The 2019 Mentorship Lab Final Reading at Books Are Magic

We are excited to announce our 2019 Mentorship Lab's final reading at Books Are Magic! Our program's inaugural year is coming to an end, and we want to celebrate the hard work of our Mentors and Fellows. Nine of our Mentorship Fellows (Pik-Shuen Fung, Julie Ae Kim, June Daowen Lei, Divya Nair, Kimarlee Nguyen, Danielle Batalion Ola, Ananya Kanai Shah, Shrima, Paul Aster Stone-Tsao) have worked closely with our three Mentors (J. Mae Barizo, T Kira Madden, Bushra Rehman) across Creative Nonfiction, Fiction & Poetry. We will hear from all of them at this event.

Join us at Books Are Magic (225 Smith St, Brooklyn, NY 11231) on December 11th at 7:00PM. Find more info on the Books Are Magic website here! The reading is open to the public, and you can RSVP on Facebook here!