Editing Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop (ACWW) (section)

== History ==
 
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ACWW began the late sixties – early seventies with a handful of community activists turned writers. The earliest publications featured two anthologies: ''Inalienable Rice: A Chinese and Japanese Canadian Anthology'' (1979) and ''West Coast Line: The Asian Canadian and the Arts'' (1981).
Founding members began to publish: Paul Yee's ''Teach Me How to Fly Skyfighter'' (1983) ( illustrated by [[Sky Lee]]); Jim Wong-Chu’s ''Chinatown Ghosts'' (1986); Paul Yee’s ''Curses of Third Uncle'' (1986), Tales of Gold Mountain (1989); SKY Lee’s ''Disappearing Moon Café'' (1993).  These pioneers saw the need to form an organization to promote our history and literary culture.  The idea of ACWW was born.  The seminal ''Many-Mouthed Birds anthology'' (1991) also served to awaken the mainstream to the richness of Chinese Canadian literature. This was followed by:<br><br>
* [[Denise Chong]]’s ''Concubine’s Children'' (1994); <br><br>
* Sky Lee’s ''Bellydancer'' (1994); <br><br>
* Lydia Kwa ‘s poetry  ''The Colours of Heroines'' (1994); <br><br>
* [[Wayson Choy]]’s ''Jade Peony'' (1995) ; <br><br>
* [[Larissa Lai]]’s ''When Fox was a Thousand'' (1995) <br><br>
* Thuong Vuong-Riddick’s ground-breaking bilingual poetry, ''Two Shores / Deux Rives'' (1995). <br><br>
1995 saw the incorporation of the ACWW as a society. Many of these pioneer writers began to win prizes. <br><br>
* Paul Yee’s ''Tales of Gold Mountain'' (1989) was awarded BC Book Prize, Sheila A. Egoff Children's Book Prize, (1990). <br><br>
* SKY Lee’s ''Disappearing Moon Café'' (1993) was nominated for the Ethel Wilson Fiction prize and the Governor General’s award and won the Vancouver Book Prize. <br><br>
* Wayson Choy’s ''Jade Peony'' (1995) won the Ontario’s Trillium Fiction Prize, The Vancouver Book Prize and is named one of the most important books in Canadian history and selected for Canada Reads. Wayson’s memoir, ''Paper Shadows'' (1999) shortlisted for the Governor General’s Book Award and his follow up to Jade Peony, ''All That Matters'' (2004) won Ontario’s Trillium Prize and shortlisted for the Giller Prize. <br><br>
* Denise Chong's ''Concubine’s Children'' (1994) won the Vancouver Book Prize, the Edna Stabler Award, The Vancity Book Award, shortlisted for the Governor General’s Book Award and was on the Globe’s best sellers list of 93 weeks. <br><br>
* Larrisa Lai’s ''When Fox was a Thousand'' (1995); was shortlisted for the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award. <br><br>
Up to the end of that first decade, ACWW was a major influence on the Asian Canadian literary world and worked hard to uncover emerging writing talent and assisting them in finding publishers.  ACWW fundraised to create an ACWW Emerging Writer’s Award. The $4,000 award was innovative because it was a strategy to attract manuscripts from emerging writers. The $4000 award was given to the publisher as incentive to help cover editing and production costs.  Although there could only be one winner, ACWW worked on the other manuscripts in hopes that one day they too will find their way to a publisher. <br><br>
* One of these success stories is Terry Woo’s ground-breaking ''Banana Boy''s (2005). It  was one of those shortlisted for the 1999 Asian-Canadian Writers' Workshop Award.  <br><br>