Fil-Am authors lead reading event in New York to benefit Filipino rural families

This is a press release from Advancement for Rural Kids.

Advancement for Rural Kids (ARK) honors Filipino-American History month with Flip the Script on Thursday, October 27, 6:30 pm, at Honeybrains New York with readings and conversations from critically acclaimed Filipino-American authors. 

Featuring: 

• Daphne Palasi Andreades whose debut novel, Brown Girls, was shortlisted for 2022 Best First Novel by Center for Fiction and is a New York Times Editors’ Choice. Author Raven Leilan says it is “an ode to girlhood, inheritance, and the good trouble the body yields”; 

• Victor Manibo, a 2022 Lambda Literary Emerging Voices Fellow whose debut speculative fiction novel The Sleepless is Buzzfeed’s Highly Anticipated Thriller for 2022. Best-selling author, Alex Segura, says “The Sleepless will prove its name: you won’t be able to put it down.”; and finally, 

• Albert Samaha, a 2023 American Fellow whose latest book Concepcion was a finalist for the 2022 National Critics Circle Award in Autobiography and received a Whitling Foundation Creative Nonfiction Grant. New York’s Best-selling author, Jia Tolentino, says it is “Absolutely extraordinary. A landmark in the contemporary of the diaspora.” 

The event will be moderated by Emmy award-winning journalist Ernabel Demillo, and 2022 Open City Fellow at AAWW, Vina Orden.

They will touch on topics explored by the authors in their works – colonialism, immigration, identity and the future.

Hosted by Marisa Seifan and Honeybrains, NYC’s best healthy restaurant, and ARK. The event will also feature curated wines by Jhonel Faelnar, NYC-based sommelier, Wine Director to 2 Michelin starred resto, Atomix, and 2020 Wine Enthusiasts’ 40 Under 40. 

ARK, a social impact innovator, is solving hunger in five weeks with rural communities in the Philippines during a time where food insecurity is at its height.

Through its proven community-wide vegetable solution called Feed Back, ARK empowers at-risk families to secure nourishing food from their backyards, and create excess to exchange with neighbors and sell to nearby towns leading to much needed new income.

At the end of the 16-week program, ARK Feed Back leaves the community happy, united, and investing in each other. 

Spots are limited. Secure your tickets now through this link.

Read ahead and buy the books at partner indie bookstore Yu and Me Books. For questions and sponsorships, please email Celine at celina.cruzlopez@ruralkids.org. – Rappler.com