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 a broadcaster and author, currently on-air with the wildly popular ABC podcast, 'Ladies, We Need to Talk' which unpacks taboos and sexual health issues in bold and sometimes life-changing ways. She co-hosts a national radio show on the KiiS FM network called The 3pm Pickup which you've probably heard if you've been in a car between 3 and 4pm. One of her books, Welcome to Consent, was recently named the New York Public Library's TOP 50 books of the year. Her classic guidebook, Welcome to Your Period, has been in non-stop reprint since it first came out and has been translated to around 20 languages including Russian, Japanese and German. The book based on the podcast 'Ladies, We Need to Talk' came out late last year, and this year, Welcome to Your Boobs was published.

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).