Last night I attended a reading celebrating the PEN American Center’s Beyond Margins winners, Richard Blanco, Andrew Lam, Ed Bok Lee, Caryl Phillips, and Jennifer Tseng.

The Beyond Margins Awards honors outstanding authors of color and was created by PEN American Center’s Open Book Committee, “a group committed to racial and ethnic diversity within the literary and publishing communities.”

This free event was held at the NY Public Library branch near the MoMA and the theatre was packed.

Some special guests were brought in to read the writers’ works: Russell Banks, author of Rule of the Bone, Cloudsplitter (a-MAY-zing), and The Sweet Hereafter; Jessica Hagedorn, author of Dogeaters, among others; and Lili Taylor - yes, that Lili Taylor, of Factotum, I Shot Andy Warhol, and Say Anything fame.

Banks was quite fine for an older white-haired gentleman (being a genius with words and wearing a sports jacket with jeans and cowboy boots doesn’t hurt either). Taylor looked about 15 while Hagedorn had great command of the stage.

After the readings, three of the authors, Richard Blanco, Ed Bok Lee, and Andrew Lam, were available for question and answer. Blanco, whose family is from Cuba, is a poet; Bok Lee, who “went to kindergarten in Korea,” according to his website, but grew up all over the U.S., writes both poetry and prose; and Lam, who arrived in America with his family from Vietnam in 1975 at age 11, writes fiction and nonfiction.

The questions were mostly from the moderator, thank goodness, poet Sonia Sanchez, who sported mile-long gray dreadlocks, a giant purple beret, and floor-skimming purple scarf, while the ones from the audience were screened so no dopes had the chance to raise his or her hand and ask something idiotic.

While the discussion centered too much on race and identity for this jaded blogger, I did come away with some pearls. When asked why they write, their answers ranged from wanting to write for their generation, to making the invisible visible, to wanting to make their own narrative part of the larger American narrative.

This last repsonse was from Lam, my favorite responder of the evening, who also said that he learned English so that he could tell people why he and his family came here, so that he could relay his story, which “is an American one, no matter what anyone says.”

I wish there had been more talk about craft and how these writers continue to improve. All said, “Read more” (well, duh) while one remarked, “Well, I hope I’m getting better!” I also wish there had been some female representation. Race is important but gender plays a large role too.

As a result of the reading, I’m dying to take a look at Lam’s memoir, Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora. Not to knock the other authors, but one book at a time.

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