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Thursday, 7:30-9:30pm
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“Little Bowl” is a short story written by Qiwen Guang and translated by Qianfan Gu, published by How Many Books in 2024. It is, among many things, a meditation on the struggles one might face in searching for a true (linguistic) identity. For this book talk at Bungee Space, Qianfan Gu will reflect on her alter ego’s writing, joined by her dear publisher Chang Yuchen and her mentor-friend in writing, Wah-Ming Chang. The three have each been practicing writing, editing, and bookmaking — though in very different forms, mediums, and genres. |
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In the story of “Little Bowl,” libraries in memory and imagination serve both as backdrops and companions for the diasporic protagonist. And it is within the linguistically diverse collections of the Queens Public Library that the two librarians—a mother and daughter, find solace, belonging, and deeper understanding of each other. “Little Bowl” is the inaugural issue of Queens Things: an imprint for collaborative, multilingual, and serial artists’ books, inspired by and devoted to the local yet worldly everyday life of Queens, New York. Initiated by Chang Yuchen in 2024, Queens Things received generous support from Queens Arts Fund New Work Grant. |
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About the artists Qiwen Guang started writing in her native language in 2023. She is fictitious, living in Qianfan Gu’s mind, who currently resides in Queens, New York. Qianfan Gu is a bilingual art critic, writer, translator, editor, and cultural worker. Her writings have appeared in Artforum and Artforum China, Spike Art Magazine, BLAU International, Art in America, among many others. In 2019, she was awarded the Special Honorable Mention of the AICA (International Association of Art Critics) Young Art Critic Incentive Award. She is also the co-founding publisher of Gong Press. Chang Yuchen works in an interdisciplinary manner - writing as weaving, drawing as translation, teaching as hospitality, commerce as social experiment (see Use Value) and publishing as a dandelion spreading its seeds. How Many Books is a publishing platform by Chang Yuchen, where she holds the work of others in book form. The first publication by How Many Books is Jin Mei (jm). Wah-Ming Chang is a writer whose work explores the voids found in family mythologies. She has been awarded grants and fellowships for fiction from such organizations as Yaddo, Ucross, the Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, Art Omi, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Her writing has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, Joyland, and The Kenyon Review, among other publications. Hand, Held, her artist book about her father's art practice, is forthcoming from Bored Wolves. From 2020 to 2022, she hosted the Low-Key Reading Party, an online reading salon in which writers, poets, photographers, and musicians shared writing and images from their shelves and from their own projects. She has worked in trade book publishing for twenty-six years and is currently the senior managing editor at Catapult. |
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Event Recap |
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Photos by Sinclair & Yuki | |