Event Details
Longtime newspaper and magazine columnist, poet, short story writer, and author Qin Sun Stubis will be the keynote speaker at the National League of American Pen Women meeting on Saturday, April 4 at 11:30 am and will talk about her life and literary work.
Qin Sun Stubis was born amidst the rubble of a Shanghai shantytown during the Great Chinese Famine, which killed some 50 million people. Growing up, she and her sisters were at first ignored by the rest of the family for being “worthless” girls, and later shunned as political pariahs when their father was imprisoned for speaking out about the injustice he saw around him.
Despite her family’s extreme poverty, Qin pulled herself up by reading banned and forbidden books and winning admission to one of China’s most prestigious universities, graduating with a degree in English and English Literature. With the help of a powerful U.S. Senator, she emigrated to the United States to further her studies and earned a master’s degree in communications. Qin vowed to use her skills, education, and voice to speak up for women, the unheard, and the voiceless, and to build greater understanding between Eastern and Western cultures.
For the past 18 years, she has been a newspaper and magazine columnist, exploring the rich legacy of Asian culture and the common links of humanity we all share. She also writes poems, essays, short stories, and original Chinese tall tales inspired by traditional Asian themes. Her historical memoir, “Once Our Lives: Life, Death and Love in the Middle Kingdom,” debuted as a #1 Amazon New Release for 41 days and was chosen as the gold winner in the international Nonfiction Book Awards, the number-one winner of the PenCraft Book Awards for literary excellence in culture and history, the first-place winner of the Nellie Bly Awards for Journalistic Non-Fiction, and a winner of both a Best Book Award and a Readers’ Favorite Book Award. Ms. Magazine, Glamour Magazine UK, Grand Magazine, and Readers’ Favorite all selected “Once Our Lives” as a recommended read and the book was recently short-listed for the international Rubery Book Award, which was created as the answer to the Man Booker Prize for independent publishers and authors.
RSVP to nlapwdcbranch@gmail.com.