Event Title: Lisa Ko and Nicole Chung, Sponsored by PEN America
Description: Join Lisa Ko and Nicole Chung in conversation.
Participants: Lisa Ko, Nicole Chung
Location: Oregon Ballroom 201-202, Oregon Convention Center, Level 2
Date & Time: Friday, March 29, 3:00 p.m. – 4:15 p.m.

If you’ve been to an AWP before, what is your favorite conference memory?
Running into friends (new, old, and long-lost) just walking from one room to another, and the spontaneous conversations that occur.

What book or books that you’ve read over the last year would you most highly recommend?
This is by no means a complete list, but I loved Myriam Gurba's Mean, Alexander Chee's How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, Cathy Park Hong's Engine Empire, and Kiese Laymon's Heavy.

Has public funding for the arts made a difference in your life and career as a writer?
Absolutely! It's critical for writers and artists to be valued for the work that we do.

Lisa Ko is the author of The Leavers, which was a 2017 National Book Award for Fiction finalist, won the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, and was a finalist for the 2018 PEN/Hemingway Award and the 2017 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award. Her writing has appeared in Best American Short Stories 2016, the New York Times, BuzzFeed, O Magazine, and elsewhere. She has been awarded fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and the MacDowell Colony, among others. Visit her at lisa-ko.com.