12:00 - 12:45
United States
Three time Asian-American Literary Award–winning author Ed Lin participates in a question-and-answer session with San Francisco and New York City youth about his debut young adult novel. Partially set in modern-day NYC's Chinatown and suburban New Jersey, David Tung Can't Have a Girlfriend Until He Gets Into an Ivy League College, tells the story of a high school student who works to improve his class ranking to be accepted into his dream school but is thrown off course when life, love and friendship get involved. For ages 13 and older.
Student book groups from SF’s Marina, Herbert Hoover and Roosevelt middle schools along with students from NYC’s PS 184 and PS 126 have been discussing Lo’s book as part of the series, “The Golden Door Meets the Golden Gate.” In this series, students and educators have connected with their bi-coastal peers and participated in virtual author talks based in SF Chinatown and NY Chinatown. In preparation for the author visit, educators guide discussion and youth consider themes and questions to pose. Watch the April author interview with Malinda Lo, author of Last Night at the Telegraph Club, set in 1954 SF Chinatown on YouTube. In this special engagement in partnership with New York Public Library, San Francisco Unified School District Libraries, and San Francisco Public Library students and educators alike are invited to listen and be inspired.
Ed Lin is a native New Yorker of Taiwanese and Chinese descent and the first author to win three Asian American Literary Awards. 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, and Incensed and 99 Ways to Die continue that series. David Tung Can’t Have a Girlfriend Until He Gets Into an Ivy League College, published by Kaya Press, is his first YA novel. Lin lives in Brooklyn with his wife, actress Cindy Cheung, and son.