I’ll join poets Jennifer Wong, Tim Tim Cheng, and Nicholas Wong for a discussion about Hong Kong poetry and art in “Hong Kong, Art, and Poetry: Four Poets in Dialogue.” Thanks to Antony Huen for bringing us together.

In partnership with One City One Book Hong Kong, I’ll offer a public creative writing workshop for the 2023 Inter-Island Festival. Here’s the program description:

In this English-language poetry writing workshop, participants will be briefly introduced to the short story “Stone” in Bison, a book of ecological stories by the Hong Kong writer Ng Hui Bun recommended by One City One Book this year. Participants will then compose their own poems around natural objects like stones, shells, or leaves. While participants are encouraged to collect and bring their own objects to write about, a selection will also be provided. This workshop is family-friendly.

“Playing with English: Creative Writing in Hong Kong Secondary School Classrooms”

I’ve been invited to speak to a roomful of applied linguists about the creative writing workshops I lead as part of CUHK’s Masterclasses program, and my work with the Education Bureau of Hong Kong. I have many AEL colleagues, but we’ve never talked about how what we do is related, so I’m really looking forward to this. Here’s the abstract:

As Hong Kong educators and parents know, English is a core subject for everyone beginning in Primary One, and it's no longer official policy to rank schools in “bands.” But there’s a wide gap between the kinds of English instruction offered at legacy “Band One” schools on the one hand, and historically less elite schools on the other. Since 2016, I have worked with several local institutions, including the Hong Kong Education Bureau and Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, to build programs that bring creative and fun encounters with English language and literature to students (and their teachers) across a range of assessed English fluency levels. In this talk, I’ll discuss how “playing with English” can be a powerful tool to help students at every level become more confident, enthusiastic speakers and writers. 

I’ve been working on a pedagogical research project with Dr. Jack Tsao, Associate Director of HKU’s Common Core, about how students think about authorship, creativity, and originality when they collaborate with GenAI tools. In a few weeks I get to share it with my colleagues at United College in a talk called “Beyond the Author: Generative AI and Student Co-creativity in Higher Education.”

I’ll join Professors Patrick Wong (Associate Vice President-Research), Xi Chao (Faculty of Law), and Darwin Lau (Faculty of Engineering) on a panel discussing the General Research Fund and Early Career Scheme grant process. My talk is the one called “Grantwriting for Poets!”

The Faculty of Arts has invited me to talk about my experience applying for (and receiving!) the Early Career Scheme research grant. My talk is called “Developing Successful Grant Proposals for Research-led Creative Practice.” I’m excited to share what I’ve learned about how to write grants for poetry research projects!

I’ve put together a panel called “Creative Coding for Creative Writing: Digital Tools in the Poetry Classroom” with Lai-Tse Fan, Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, Doug Luman, and Keith S. Wilson. Come by if you’re in Seattle! Here’s the panel description:

Computational and digital poetry tools are increasingly accessible and easy to use, and offer exciting ways to help students compose new work, revise thoughtfully, and hone their sense of purpose as writers. This panel considers the merits of creative coding and other digital practices in poetry classrooms from MFA workshops to undergraduate surveys to high school enrichment programs. We’ll share our experiences using open-source, free, and fun tools to support specific pedagogical goals.

“Immersed in the Archive: VR Poetry as Cross-disciplinary Creative Practice”

It’s nice to be back to in-person events! I’ll visit the English Department’s Seminar Series to share some new immersive VR poems that have emerged from my collaborative work with DOKYU.

I’ll be visiting ART610: Duration, Audience, and Documentation, a graduate course taught by my DOKYU collaborator Aki Sasamoto. We’ll talk about document-based poetry and the challenges of presenting, in print format, poems that were designed for immersive 3D virtual space.

Shirley Geok-lin Lim will launch her new collection of poems in collaboration with Cha. I’ll read a poem and so will many of Shirley’s friends. It’s online, 11AM in HK and 7PM in California. Facebook event info here!

I’ll visit Professor Otto Heim’s “Poetry Past and Present” class at HKU and offer the wrap-up lecture of the term, on contemporary poetic currents in and out of Hong Kong.

This spring, I’ll offer a pair of workshops on “Using Language Arts to Promote the Creative Use of English” to in-service teachers as part of the Education Bureau’s “Optimising Senior Secondary English Language Series.” Put more simply, we’ll talk about implementing creative writing strategies to help secondary students write in English with confidence, especially on their Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education English subject exam.

For the University of Hong Kong Masters Programme in English Studies Reading Group, I’ll be discussing my favorite research topic with new MA students in a hybrid online/in-person event.

I’m excited to visit Michael Barach and Brandi George’s co-taught collaborative writing course at Florida Southwestern State. We’ll be talking about my work with DOCUMENT: New Art & Writing about Place-Based Histories, whose website just launched!

This is the first time I’ve designed and led a poetry workshop in a hybrid online/in-person format. I’ll be working with 150 Secondary 3 students in a visit to Wong Kam Fai, thanks to English Teacher and poet Marco Yan.

I’ll be presenting an excerpt from my dissertation titled “Together in the Future Wilderness: CAConrad’s Queer Appearances” at the University of Edinburgh Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities.

Generative poetry workshop organized by HKU’s student English association, open to all. Check back for the Zoom link to come!

Poetry workshop for Hong Kong Baptist University MA English students.

Curated by Jennifer Wong, with UK poets Natalie Linh Bolderston, Sue Burge, and Anthony Anaxagorou. The reading will be recorded and uploaded on YouTube afterwards. Join the Zoom meeting here:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86855500705?pwd=NVVpS3pzcnlrK2w4Yk1YUlUwR0kvdz09

Meeting ID: 868 5550 0705
Passcode: 907264

(8PM Hong Kong time, 12PM GMT, 7AM EST)

“An Evening of Urban Love Poetry” with Marilyn Chin, Srikanth Reddy, Jennifer Wong, Mary Jean Chan, and others.

With Lavanya Shanbhogue. Co-sponsored by Mongrel Writers Residence & Cha: An Asian Literary Journal. Zoom link: https://hkbu.zoom.us/j/91442602127 (ID: 914 4260 2127)

“Expat Writers in and from Asia: Questioning the Term ‘Expatriate’,” with Sybil Baker, Robin Hemley, Ploi Pirapokin, and Lawrence Lacambra Ypil.

Guest lecture about erasure poetry and political protest at Hong Kong Baptist University’s College of International Education. Open to the public. Shatin campus, room SMC 802.