About the Program
Stories in Conversation with novelist Ed Lin, biographer and fiction writer Julia Lin, and memoirist Wiley Wei-Chiun Ho.
How does Taiwanese and Taiwanese diasporic culture play into historical and crime fiction, a biography, and a family memoir? This panel will see three authors—two born in the island nation, and the third in New York City—delve into their heritage while also moving forward to tell their stories. As Taiwan itself sees cultural shifts, what is preserved and what is lost in tales set in North America? Come for a lively discussion, audience Q&A, and book signing!
This session will be moderated by Charlie Smith, editor of Pancouver.
**This talk will be conducted in English.
Wiley Wei-Chiun Ho is an award-winning writer of short stories and personal essays. Her work has been published in literary journals, magazines, and anthologies. Born in Taiwan, Wiley moved to Canada with her family when she was nine. Identifying as Generation 1.5, she writes about the liminal spaces between places, cultures, languages, identities, and selves. She is based in North Vancouver, Canada.
Julia Lin was born in Taiwan and lived there and in Vietnam before her family immigrated to Canada when she was nine. Since then, Julia has lived in Vancouver, Toronto, and northern British Columbia. She holds a graduate degree in Immunology (M.Sc., University of Toronto) and a postgraduate degree in computing education (University of British Columbia.) She was on the Executive of The Writers’ Union of Canada for six years and is a past board member of the Vancouver Public Library as well as the Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop. A graduate of Humber’s Creative Writing Program and author of the first Taiwanese-Canadian book of literary fiction, Julia’s publications include a story collection, Miah; an anthology, AlliterAsian: Twenty Years of Ricepaper Magazine; and a biography, Shadows of the Crimson Sun: One Man’s Life in Manchuria, Taiwan, and North America. Her new story collection, The Princeling and Other Stories, will be published by Guernica Editions in 2027.
Ed Lin, a native New Yorker of Taiwanese and Chinese descent, is the first author to win three Asian American Literary Awards and is an all-around standup kinda guy. His books include Waylaid, and a mystery trilogy set in New York’s Chinatown in the ‘70s: This Is a Bust, Snakes Can’t Run and One Red Bastard. Ghost Month, published by Soho Crime, is a Taipei-based mystery. Incensed, 99 Ways to Die, Death Doesn’t Forget and The Dead Can’t Make A Living continue that series. David Tung Can’t Have a Girlfriend Until He Gets Into an Ivy League College, his first YA novel, was published by Kaya Press. Lin lives in Brooklyn with his wife, actress Cindy Cheung, and son.
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TAIWANfest Vancouver is grateful to be held on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam Indian Band), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish Nation), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh Nation). We acknowledge our privilege to be gathered here, and commit to work with and be respectful to the Indigenous peoples of this land while we engage in meaningful conversations of culture and reconciliation.