The Center for the Humanities Programming Participants and Collaborators

Ava Chin

Ava Chin is a 5th generation New Yorker, is the author of Mott Street, a 2024 American Library Association Notable Book and a Best Book of 2023 by TIME, the San Francisco Chronicle, Kirkus, Library Journal, and Elle. Her first memoir Eating Wildly won the MFK Fisher Book Award for excellence in food writing. She is the recipient of awards from the NY Public Library’s Cullman Center, the Fulbright Program, NYFA, NY Institute for the Humanities, and the Asian American Writer’s Workshop. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times (“Urban Forager”), Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Village Voice, SPIN, and VIBE. She is Professor of Creative Nonfiction at the College of Staten Island and the head of the CUNY Graduate Center’s American Studies Certificate Program.

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