This is just a quick…

This is just a quick note of some of my upcoming events. I'm still pretty limited in what I have time to do, especially during this crazy semester, but it's nice to be out and about in the world again.

• April 7, 12:00 - 1:30; Northwestern Colloquium on Ethnicity and Diaspora, talk centering on work-in-progress Arbitrary Passions (Chicago, IL)

• April 9, 6:30: Joint reading (with Roohi Choudhry, Summi Kaipa, Ramola D, and Minal Hajratwala), Highlands Ranch Library (near Denver, CO)

• April 10, 10:30 a.m., AWP Conference, chairing panel: "From Bombs to Bindis: Trends and Tensions in S. Asian Diaspora Writing" (Denver, CO)

• May 27-31 , 2010, Guest of Honor, WisCon (Madison, WI)

• June 19, SE Wisconsin Festival of Books (Waukesha, WI)

And here's a bit more info on the AWP panel:

From Bombs to Bindis: Trends and Tensions in S. Asian Diaspora Writing

PANEL DESCRIPTION:
Publishers often expect S. Asian books to focus on either sex (as in the classic arranged marriage novel) or violence (generally ethnic, communalist, or terrorist tensions). Many of us find ourselves writing on these two topics, but not always in the way publishers expect. Six authors discuss the extent to which their own work does or doesn't fit into trendy tropes, and consider the implications of writing about sex and violence in the current market, and in our politically-charged world.

EVENT STATEMENT OF MERIT:
This panel focuses on two topics: one aspect is concerned with publishing pressures exerted upon writers of color from the third world, especially women writers. The other aspect centers on the social difficulty of writing around sex and/or violence, highly-charged topics that put writers at both emotional and physical risk, especially when their home cultures are in deep conflict on these topics. These conflicts are impossible for ethnic writers to ignore, and also urgent for other writers.

Mary Anne Mohanraj (chair), Shilpa Agarwal, Roohi Choudhry, Minal Hajratwala, Mrigaa Sethi (and possibly Ramola D)