In New York, this coming weekend!

The South Asian Women's Creative Collective presents:

Stranger Love: SAWCC's 6th Annual Literary Festival
March 6–7, 2009

A two-day series of readings, panel discussions, and writing workshops featuring South Asian writing that explores love between strangers and love that is strange.

This year's festival, Stranger Love, calls to mind accidental encounters and provocative attractions that defy the boundaries of social expectation. From guerilla movements in Sri Lanka to the suburbs of New Jersey, South Asian women examine journey and memory, war and conflict, and race and sexuality, spanning the genres of poetry, memoir, travelogue, and fiction.

Friday, March 6th, 7pm
Reading and Conversation

Featuring Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jhumpa Lahiri (Unaccustomed Earth, Knopf 2008), with author V.V. Ganeshananthan (Love Marriage, Random House 2008).
This event is now sold out, but please come out for drinks with us on Friday evening and celebrate SAWCC's 12th birthday!

at Wollman Hall
The New School
65 West 11th Street, 5th Floor
New York, NY

Saturday, March 7th, 10am–5:30pm
Panel Discussions and Writing Workshops

Day-long series of panel discussions with Fawzia Afzal-Khan, Meena Alexander, Abha Dawesar, Farzana Doctor, Minal Hajratwala, S. Mitra Kalita, Pooja Makhijani, Suketu Mehta, Chandra Prasad, Zohra Saed, and Svati Shah. See http://sawcc.org/events for full schedule.

Writing workshops include a poetry workshop with Purvi Shah and fiction writing with Bushra Rehman. See http://sawcc.org/events for sign-up information.

at The New School
6 East 16th Street (at 5th Ave), 9th Floor
New York, NY

Saturday, March 7th, 7pm
Closing Night Reading

From dating on Craigslist to undiscovered family histories, South Asian women share their own writing on the theme of "stranger love," featuring Fawzia Afzal-Khan, Meena Alexander, Abha Dawesar, Farzana Doctor, Minal Hajratwala, S. Mitra Kalita, Yesha Naik, Amy Paul, Bushra Rehman, Zohra Saed, and Purvi Shah.

at Bar 13
35 East 13th Street
New York, NY
$5 at the door

For full schedule and detailed ticket/venue information, visit http://sawcc.org/events
Questions? Email litfest@sawcc.org

Stranger Love is cosponsored by the New School's South Asia Forum, the Asian American Writers' Workshop, and Sholay Productions. This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers, Inc. through public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; and by the New York Council for the Humanities.