Descriptions:
This event was originally held on June 4, 2026, via Zoom. The video will be available until July 6, 2026. Please note that while staff have cleaned up the auto-captions, mistakes still might be present.
“The web of interconnectedness” with Lydia Kwa
I explore hybridity and outsider experiences through creating characters and narratives that foreground the queer and those who have been othered, including the non-human or more than human. This presentation will touch on how I experience foundation as an ever-shifting web of interconnectedness, as embodied in my 傳奇 (chuanji) trilogy—Oracle Bone, The Walking Boy and A Dream Wants Waking. These novels are my attempts to interrogate and to subvert ancient texts and tropes from Chinese cultural sources, both ancient and contemporary.
Lydia Kwa (she/her) has published three books of poetry (The Colours of Heroines, 1992; sinuous, 2013; from time to new, 2024) and five novels (This Place Called Absence, 2000; The Walking Boy, 2005 and 2019; Pulse, 2010 and 2014; Oracle Bone, 2017; A Dream Wants Waking, 2023). She is currently writing a neo-noir speculative fiction novel. As a queer Southeast Asian person of mixed heritage who grew up in Singapore, she has lived and worked since 1992 on the unceded and traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples.
Hosted by Neil Aitken.