November Town Hall: Memoir

For our November Town Hall, A4 takes a deeper look at the art of memoir. How do artists explore deeply personal experiences and create connections in the process?

Writer, educator, activist, and performer Alvin Eng (Our Laundry, Our Town) will share his artistic journey of writing plays and adapting them into memoirs. We’ll also hear from Carrie Sun and her experiences as a writer who recently had a celebrated debut with her memoir, Private Equity.

Additionally, the evening will feature a line-up of two-minute pitches from the community. After the presentations, we’ll host a potluck meal, so please bring something to share; homemade or store bought items are welcome. A4 will provide drinks.

This event is FREE and open to the public. RSVP is required to pitch and/or attend, but please note you do not have to pitch to attend.

About Alvin Eng
Alvin Eng is a native NYC author, playwright, educator, and performer. He is currently a New York Public Library Fellow––developing a companion book to his memoir, Our Laundry, Our Town: My Chinese American Life from Flushing to the Downtown Stage and Beyond (Fordham University Press). Alvin’s next memoir, Urban Oracle Bones, is an adaptation of his solo acoustic punk raconteur performance piece, Here Comes Johnny Yen Again (or How I Kicked Punk). This book examines the profound impact of The Opium Wars and opium on the Chinese diaspora in NYC as well as on the 1970s “heroin chic” punk/counterculture of his formative years. Books: Three Trees (historical drama about sculptor Alberto Giacometti) and TOKENS? The NYC Asian American Experience on Stage (oral history/performance text anthology). His plays and performances have been seen Off-Broadway, in Paris, Hong Kong, and Guangzhou, China. Awards and fellowships include Fulbright Specialist, NYSCA/NYFA, LMCC, and A4 Urban Artists Initiative.

About Carrie Sun
Carrie Sun was born in China and raised in Michigan. She holds an MFA in creative writing from The New School. Private Equity: A Memoir is her first book and has been named a finalist for the New American Voices Award. She currently lives in Jersey City with her husband.

About A4’s Town Hall
Town Hall is A4’s bi-monthly community gathering event that features presentations, pitches, and power networking! We welcome artists of all disciplines, as well as arts organizations, to pitch upcoming projects, find collaborators, or discover new opportunities in a lively space.

Interested in pitching? Please carefully read about the pitch process below.

About the Pitch Process
A4 Town Halls are a forum to share an upcoming project or exhibition, promote an event or opportunity, find collaborators and venues, or simply introduce yourself to the creative community.

Please note: The pitches are not for any specific opportunity with A4 or otherwise. It is not a pitch to potential funders or programmers. It’s low-stakes and presented among a group of AAPI creatives, artists, and arts workers. To give you a sense of the format, here is a recording of a past Town Hall.

There are two ways to pitch at an A4 Town Hall: a two-minute pitch which requires pre-registering, and a thirty-second pitch which you can sign up for at the event.

Two-minute pitches
You must complete the below steps in order to reserve your two-minute pitch slot.

1. Register for the event and
2. Complete this pitch form at least three days before the event

If you do not complete the form by the deadline, you risk not being included in the line-up.

In your pitch form, please include any images, video, or slides you would like presented during your pitch. We encourage you to share your website and social handles so that we can promote on the event page and in the slides – which we share with all attendees after the event.

Slides will be presented in the order in which they are uploaded. If you would like to ensure your slides appear in the correct order, please number them. We recommend no more than 20 slides. A4 Staff will be compiling and driving the slideshow. Presenters will not be able to use their devices to present.

We typically cap two-minute pitches to 14 total presenters on a first come, first served basis. If we reach capacity, and you would like to be put on the waitlist, please email rmirza@aaartsalliance.org.

We will send the pitch order to all presenters by the morning of the event.

Thirty-second pitches
After the two-minute pitches, we invite anyone from the audience to provide a thirty-second pitch. This requires signing up at the event.

Accessibility: BRIC is ADA compliant with a ramp, elevator access, and all-gender public restrooms. They also have high-resolution visual assets available.

If you need CART Transcription, ASL interpretation, large print, or any other accommodations for this event, please email programs@aaartsalliance.org at least one week before this event.

To keep everyone safe and healthy, if you are not feeling well or have been exposed to COVID-19, please stay home. We will provide masks.