Asian Women Let Loose

Sat 7 May 2022

Yen-Rong Wong + Yumiko Kadota + Yumi Stynes + Mirandi Riwoe

slq Auditorium 1, level 2, State Library

Main Festival

#Performances

#About the event

Duration: 60 minutes

For the longest time, Asian women have endured stereotypes of being meek, mild and softly spoken. But, after waves of anti-Asian sentiment – most recently Covid-induced anti-Asian violence (often directed towards women of East Asian background) – these women have had enough. And they are far from alone.

Panel: Yumi Stynes, Yumiko Kadota, Yen-Rong Wong
Chair: Mirandi Riwoe

#Artists

Yen-Rong Wong

Yen-Rong is an arts critic and award-winning writer based between Yugambeh and Jaggera and Turrbal lands. She won the Glendower Award for an Emerging Queensland Writer in 2022 and the Queensland Premier's Young Publishers and Writers Award in 2020. Her work has appeared in many print and online publications, including The Guardian, Meanjin, The Sydney Review of Books, and Griffith Review. Me, Her, Us (UQP) is her debut work of non-fiction.

Yumiko Kadota

Yumiko is a medical doctor from Sydney. She resigned from public hospital work after experiencing burnout and now works in medical education and private health. Her story entered mainstream media after she blogged in February 2019 about her experiences as a trainee in the health system, opening with the words: ‘I never thought I would say this, but I broke. I give up. I am done. I am handing back my dream of becoming a surgeon.’ Nowadays she’s rebuilding herself, starting with her health. She blogs on wide range of topics that reflect her various interests; eco-warrior, yogi, book worm.

Yumi Stynes

Yumi Stynes is an author and broadcaster working on Gadigal land. She got her start as an interviewer when working as a music reporter on the Foxtel station Channel [V] in the year 2000. She still talks music when taking a shift on national music broadcaster Double J.

Right now she can be heard on the hugely popular ABC podcast 'Ladies, We Need to Talk' - currently in its eighth season talking about taboos around women's issues.

Her groundbreaking books co-authored with Dr Melissa Kang include this year's ABIA Winner for Book of the Year for older Children, Welcome to Sex. The Welcome to series of guidebooks have sold over a quarter of a million copies and been translated into 14 languages.

When it all gets too stressful, Yumi has a food podcast called 'The 5 Minute Food Fix' where she laughs with dear friend and cookbook editor/publisher Simon Davis while giving recipes, hacks and tricks for busy people who love food.

Mirandi Riwoe

Mirandi Riwoe is the author of Sunbirds. Her novel, Stone Sky Gold Mountain, won the ARA Historical Novel Prize and the Queensland Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Stella Prize and longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. Her novella The Fish Girl won Seizure’s Viva la Novella and was shortlisted for the Stella Prize. Her short fiction and novellas can be found in the collection The Burnished Sun. Mirandi has a PhD in Creative Writing and Literary Studies (QUT).