Asian American Writers' Workshop

aaww.org · American English

Amplifying Asian and Asian diasporic literature since 1991.

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Last post: Aug 11, 2026
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Into the Ocean
Aug 11, 2026 · original
The following text, written by Jihan—a thirteen-year-old who lives in Lombok, Indonesia, and is learning to swim and surf—has been translated from Indonesian, compiled, and edited for clarity. Jihan Not many of my friends spend time in the ocean. If they do, they prefer to enjoy it from the shore rather than swimming or surfing, because most of them don’t know how to swim. They know that swimming and surfing are difficult sports that take a long time to learn. We are also taught at a young age that the place is mystical, the sea is scary, and there are many monster fish that look for small children as sacrificial offerings. It will be crucial to learn how to swim early to prepare for floods and tsunamis. I believe the biggest barriers limiting more girls from swimming and getting in the ocean is limited education and the cost of lessons. There is also a belief in many families that women
研究雨 | Rain Studies
Jul 28, 2026 · original
Chinese English 研究雨沒有人能真正把雨的聲音研究徹底。事實上雨就像鋼琴一樣沉默。你只能等待雨。全世界最被動的鋼琴家不過如此。雨會選擇你。或選擇紙張。鐵皮加蓋。人工湖。流浪狗。或許專挑黑色的。等待那粒鋼琴向目標砸來——。唯有接觸才能知道它的天分。那天雨下得特別慷慨，彷彿是由某位天才瘋狂的作曲家負責工程，好比說，二十六歲的舒曼。雨像C大調幻想曲那樣全面地覆蓋，看不見的他，在那天看見城市完整的天際線。沒有人能真正把雨的聲音研究徹底。杜爾仰頭看著灰色的天空。從一片髒兮兮的地方，翻出一張口袋，很快地又縮了回去。從裡頭掉出的碎珠子，開始向下墜，由0拉長到1，打中杜爾的額頭，分裂成其它八個數字。杜爾穿起雨衣，刻意保持距離。他感覺自己暫時躲進地底下。數字在幾毫米外低音量加減乘除。杜爾彷彿聽見蘑菇從土裡冒出頭的聲音。 Rain Studies No one has ever thoroughly studied the sounds of rain. In fact, the rain is as silent as the piano. You can only wait for the rain. The most passive pianist in the world also waits like that. The rain chooses you. Or paper. A tin-sheet cover. A man-made lake. A stray dog. Or maybe it chooses anything black. You wait for the piano to strike the target real hard——. You know its talent only by the touch. The rain fell with exceptional generosity that day, as if it were the work of a certain mad genius composer. Let’s sa
Two Poems by Blake Traylor
Jul 28, 2026 · original
Manscaping In middle school ceramics, my teacher mistook my turtle for a deformed teapot. She punched a hole through its face to let the water out. I made a temple, too, but gave it blue ribs and a dome without a mouth to let the whispers out. Naked, a youth in a city square submits to alchemy: tourists squeeze his junk and leave a golden stain. An ocean away, I work to erase our clients’ residue. The rasp of steel wool and suds beard my wrist. I hold my fortune under the water, which burns the skin clean. Fluorescent light congeals across my china-slick pores. I am lacquered, no longer knowing what color I keep beneath today’s shoddy apron. White Hair Silver Needle It was like a graveyard if all the graves were gone. It was like a yard but not my yard anymore. I was like a grave or a vacancy replaced. Like ashes tumbling backward to the urn since recycled to pot this new season’s hope.
The End of Youth
Jul 28, 2026 · original
The taxonomy of the data around me was corrupted by the brutalist architecture of my last name. Some thought I was masquerading as a placeholder, always desirous of something more viscous in the cup I sipped till the corner of my lips soaked by day with butter bled dirty red by night. There were no kisses. There were no fingers intertwined, no ice-cream. The length of my jeans shrank magically exposing my shins to the low dust of the city’s urgencies. My toe rubbed against a new shoe in the ancient language of first contact. I stumbled on the road, fell beside the glance of a baby in a pram. I said sorry always thrice like a prayer. The moment I made a mistake I wanted to go home and drink water. The well behind the field behind my apartment remained covered with a lid covered with moss. Years ago, it used to be semi-open. Inside its pitiless hollow, had once echoed my name in the voice
Bitter Gourd
Jul 28, 2026 · original
Anemic green: jaded being. What sweetness did bees and insects suck out from your yellow flowers as you tendril and cling on to a ripening fruit? And what shade did the sun bleach out of you as you torment yourself, deformed gourd, and turn bitter? To eat you, sliced or diced, and boiled over to wean the yellow bile from within you, your lament lingers on despite the garlic and black bean sauce, rolled over shrimp, minced pork and green beans in a wok: you are still tangy to the crunch. Ancient sages have warned about you: even a China Rose would lose its sweetness, fade and wither away when soaked with water that has washed you over. Though I enjoy your mild displeasure, spiced with pepper and a bowl of rice, never would I pour you over my rose bushes lest lament should kill beauty. This piece is part of the Summer 2026 issue .
أحتاج إلى مفاجأتي العادية | I Need My Ordinary Surprises
Jul 28, 2026 · original
ئۇيغۇرچە English أحتاج إلى مفاجأتي العادية هناك نوعٌ غريبٌ من السعادة يلوح في حياتنا بشكل غير ملحوظ، ولا يُنسب إلا إلى تلك اللحظات البسيطة التي لا نُدرك قيمتها إلا عندما تغيب. إنها المفاجآت العادية، تلك التي ليست خارجة عن المألوف، ولكنها تبعث في الروح شعورًا غريبًا بالفرح. أحتاج إلى تلك المفاجآت اليومية، التي تأتي على شكل رسالة من صديق قديم، أو كوب قهوة دافئة ذات صباح خريفي هادئ. أحتاج إلى سماع كلمات غير متوقعة تثير في نفسي شعورًا بالراحة، كأن أحدهم يقول لي: “كل شيء سيكون على ما يرام” في وقتٍ يبدو فيه كل شيء ضبابيًا . المفاجآت العادية هي تلك اللحظات الصغيرة التي تجعلنا نشعر بأن الحياة، رغم ضغوطها اليومية، لا تزال قادرة على مفاجأتنا بما هو طيب وبسيط. إنها اللمسات التي تجعلنا نبتسم دون سبب، مثلما يفعل النسيم العليل عندما يمر فجأة بين أشجار الحديقة. في عالم مليء بالمفاجآت المعقدة، أجد نفسي أحنُّ إلى تلك اللحظات التي تبدو عادية للآخرين، لكنها بالنسبة لي هي مفاجآتي المفضلة. مفاجآت لا تكلف وقت
bodycount as
Jul 28, 2026 · original
This piece includes mention of sexual abuse. Please take care while reading . 1. There is a world where you are born a woman and your body is the most beautiful uncomplicated thing about you. Everyone thinks this, even your cousins, one at six, and one at fifteen. Even your uncle, as good as your father after you’re orphaned. In the place of failed metaphors, does a door think itself a door without its hinges? What is a survivor without her body? 2. The year I turned twenty-four I fucked white men to forgive myself for having a body my uncle touched. They didn’t know of the fragility of recasting the body, ridding myself of fault in the dark. 3. It’s true, I used them. 4. It’s fine, they used me back. 5. Someone once asked if I wasn’t afraid that these men were strangers. She was asking about keeping safe. What’s the worst that could happen? Four times men loved me and hadn’t been able t
Move
Jul 28, 2026 · original
Dad works near a lake and I pack pieces of bread for him to feed pigeons during his breaks. Mom cleans the kitchen. I practice roller skating on our white rug floors, when I take them out to the driveway to test my skills, I fall and skin my knees. A blood trail to the front door. I stained our carpet, it caused a fight because mom wants wooden floors for precisely this reason. She can’t stop sneezing. She puts me to sleep and I watch her leave and yellow light floods my room for an instant. Dad says she goes to work in a library, she’s taking a class. I think she goes to the woods and dances. I say something about it. I’ve followed her to the woods only once. I saw her. I think mom gets fun at night. I fell asleep in some leaves at the back of the house and snuck back into the window for morning shower. I can tie my laces. Dad lost his smell. I believe in myself on my first day of the s
Lessons in Softness
Jul 28, 2026 · original
In this language, so many words for hurt. 속상, meaning your insides are rotten. All that twisting and churning, those sinking pebbles you keep inside like loose coins, lost teeth. Hurt made flesh and eye and soft tendon, limbs melting into the restaurant booth, knotting into another body. 속 상 like another hour past closing time, like the burns that stain Eomma’s wrists or the couple arguing in the laundromat next door. 속상 like their drooping dog, like our heads resting against the grooves of popcorn walls, our skin remnants of disaster, skin expansive as planets, hydrogen and helium, atoms the moment before they’re split into strangers, 속상, the rot inside we call hurt, call leaving, call ours, ours. This piece is part of the Summer 2026 issue .
Art for bankers
Jul 28, 2026 · original
This blue china body marks dead lobby space. Acrylic cubes protect silent white polish from all lively passersby. Proper men once called me Vessel of former awe. Maybe past life earned prestige’s gaze; from ruler and diplomat, from patterned women all around. Back then, joy engulfed dining halls, crushing us lucky strangers amongst humming tables. We stored sweet refreshment – baijiu, rice wines – vibrating within walled stories frozen to patina’s gleam: flight of birds, pine tree and pagoda, quiet cloaks on the bridge. Now, painted face and I stare past worth. I remain chipped at curved lip, base smoothed through back-then’s pleasant use. Now, I’m worth what few glances gather. Dear Bored Witness: free me! make slim use of my stirring expanse! I cannot remain empty-bellied, earning blank decadence, wasting small labours and all I’ve ever known. This piece is part of the Summer 2026 issu

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