With a deep vulnerability, Jinwoo Park, Grace Kwan, and Eddy Boudel Tan offer work that defies genre and expectation. This cross-genre reading brings together memoir, essay, and fiction to explore themes of queerness, diaspora, belonging, and the small absurdities of everyday life. Intimate, inventive, and full of heart.
Location: Room C440, UBC Robson Square
Sponsored by: Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop
Moderator: Todd Wong
Readers: Jinwoo Park, Oxford Soju Club (Dundurn Press) | Grace Kwan, The Sacred Heart Motel (Metonymy Press) | Eddy Boudel Tan, The Tiger and The Cosmonaut (Penguin Random House Canada)
About The Host
Todd Wong
"Toddish McWong" is a 5th Gen Vancouverite, who loves to promote and recreate/reimagine the cultural history of Vancouver and Canada. The Gung Haggis Fat Choy Robbie Burns Chinese New Year Dinner served delicious helpings of poetry mixed w deep-fried haggis wonton for 25+ years. Spinoffs include a CBC TV special, and winning the inaugural Battle of the Bards reciting Robert Burbs Poetry. Todd is active in the BC literary community as President of Asian Cdn Writers Workshop, and founding chair of the Historic Joy Kogawa House Society. When he isn't rapping Rabbie Burns, he can be found playing accordion tunes!
About The Readers
Jinwoo Park
Jinwoo Park is a Korean Canadian writer based in Montreal. Born and raised in Seoul, he has lived in various parts of North America and the UK since the age of 11. He obtained his bachelor’s degree from McGill in 2013, followed by a master’s in political economics from the London School of Economics in 2014, and a master’s in creative writing at the University of Oxford in 2015. In 2021 he won the Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers’ Award for his first manuscript, Oxford Soju Club, which will be published by Dundurn Press in September 2025. He has also been actively working as a literary translator after winning the Emerging Translator Award from the Literature Translation Institute of Korea in late 2023. He is an editor for Ricepaper magazine.
Grace Kwan
Grace Kwan is a Malaysian-born sociologist and writer raised in “Vancouver,” the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations. A Pushcart Prize and Best New Poets nominee, their first full-length book THE SACRED HEART MOTEL was published by Metonymy Press in November 2024. Find them at grckwn.com or @sleepyfacegrace.
Eddy Boudel Tan
Eddy Boudel Tan has been a finalist for the Edmund White Award, the ReLit Best Novel Award, and the Ferro-Grumley Award for his novels After Elias and The Rebellious Tide. He was named a Rising Star by Writers’ Trust of Canada in 2021. His short stories can be found in Joyland, Yolk, and various literary journals and anthologies. The Tiger and the Cosmonaut is his third novel. He lives in Vancouver with his husband.
