7 Continents 9 Lives

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Talk Cancelled

Fay Chiang, a writer, artist and community/cultural activist, will read excerpts from, 7 Continents 9 Lives, her anthology of poetry spanning four decades of art and life.

Fay’s work is complex. Born of anger, it is ultimately optimistic about the importance of the artist as a preserver and perpetuator of culture, and of the self-determination of the individual in a society in which pressures to conform persist. Her unflinching sense of fairness and justice and her intolerance of hypocrisy seem at odds with her joie de vivre and good humor. In truth, her tenacity and clear vision are the strength of her work, both artistic and political.

Raised in the backroom of a laundry in Queens by immigrant parents from Guandong, China, Fay writes from her experiences as a woman of color from the working class. She believes culture is a psychological weapon to reclaim our past, define our present and to envision possibilities for our future; that the development of culture is an integral part of progressive social change and social justice movements.

Author Bio

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Fay Chiang has been a poet, visual artist, community and cultural activist in NYC Chinatown and the Lower East Side for the past 40 years. At the Basement Workshop (the first Asian American nonprofit multidisciplinary cultural organization in NYC and the east coast) she began as a volunteer for the Yellow Pearl project and Bridge Magazine and moved on to coordinate and develop Amerasia Creative Arts in 1973 and became its executive director from 1974 to 1986. Director of Henry Street Settlement’s Asian American Outreach Program; project manager/special sections editor in NY Newsday’s Public Affairs Office, and director of Poets & Writers’ Readings/Workshops state-wide re-grant program, she joined Project Reach in 2000 and is currently working in program development, crisis counseling for young people at risk and supporting youth and adults living with HIV/AIDS.

Author of 3 volumes of poetry: 7 Continents 9 Lives published in 2010 by Bowery Press and In The City of Contradictions, and Miwa’s Song by Sunbury Press in 1979 and 1982 respectively. Her poetry and prose have been published nationally and internationally in numerous poetry anthologies and literary magazines including: The Bowery Poetry Cafe Women’s Poetry Anthology, Mamapalooza/The Mom Egg, Amerasia Journal, Tribes Magazine, Voci Dal Silenzio (I Canguri/Feltrinelli, Milan), Changer L’Amerique: Anthologie de la Protestaire USA (La Maison de la Poesie, Rhones-Alps) Girls: An Anthology (Global City Press), Quiet Fire, (Asian American Writers Workshop, NY), Ordinary Women (Ordinary Women Books, NY), American Born and Foreign, (Sunbury Press, NY).

A recipient of a New York State CAPS Poetry grant, a Revson Fellowship at Columbia University, a Lifetime Achievement Award from New York University’s Asian/Pacific American Studies Department as well as The Five Colleges, MA, Fay has taught poetry, visual arts and playwriting as an artist in residence in venues including the 63rd Street Y’s Writers Voice, Plays for Living, Project Reach, Art in General and Dramatic Risks.

A fine arts student at Hunter College of CUNY, she received a Bachelor of Arts from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. As a Revson Fellow at Columbia University, she studied scriptwriting and film history. In 2003-2004, she was the artist in residence at New York University’s Asian/Pacific/American Studies program, where she worked on her book-length poem Chinatown, and participated in classroom discussions and public programming. In 2004-2007 as a visiting scholar under the auspices of NYU/APA’s program, she continued her research work for “Chinatown”; and worked on a book-length poetry manuscript, “In This Life”, based on her conversations as a breast cancer survivor with a friend living with AIDS. October 2011, she was a fellow at the Gardarev Center, Boston where she continued work on “In This Life” and started work on her memoir.

In Spring/Summer 2006, she completed: archival recordings of her work with Jack Tchen and Jason Hwang at NYU/APA; and a one-act play, “Two Boots and a Ball Gown”, that was read at NYU/APA September 2006. Fall 2007 she began co-production of a documentary by Mark Waren on the Café Cino, the seminal theater (1958-68) that catalyzed the Off-Off Broadway, experimental and gay theater movements in New York City’s East and West Village.

A frequent speaker at colleges and community based organizations, Fay has also begun making visual art and exhibiting again after a 3 decade break consumed by arts administration, parenting and battling breast cancer since 1994. She has had 7 major bouts/surgeries in the past 17 years.

A volunteer for Zero Capital, Orchard Street Arts and Advocacy, October 22nd Coalition Against Police Brutality, and a board member for nonprofits: BorderStatements, When I Walk, and Dramatic Risks, Fay lives in the East Village and is mother of the inimitable Xian.