The Nature of Our Times Hybrid Poetry Reading & Exhibit Launch
2025.11.13, 7 p.m.
Join us in person or remotely for a hybrid poetry reading and exhibit launch featuring contributors to the new anthology The Nature of Our Times: Poems on America’s Lands, Waters, Wildlife, and Other Natural Wonders. The exhibit of poetry and images at Poets House explores how nature shapes our lives, and how we can shape nature’s future.
In-person readers include Kimberly Blaeser, Vina Orden, Joanna Solfrian, Leah Umansky, and anthology coeditor David Hassler. Online readers include anthology coeditors Luisa A. Igloria and Aileen Cassinetto, as well Ching-In Chen, Kinsale Drake, Jane Hirshfield, Philip Metres, Dorsía Smith Silva, and Arthur Sze.
Published by Paloma Press in collaboration with the Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University and Poets for Science, The Nature of Our Times is a companion to the United By Nature Initiative, a first-of-its-kind, national assessment of U.S. lands, waters, and wildlife.
Presented in collaboration with the Wick Poetry Center and the Poetry Coalition.
Agbayani Worship: Mythmaking, Colonial Mentality, and the Problematics of a Filipino Captain America
2025.10.24
Vina Orden will present on her essay in CUNY FORUM Volume 11:1, examining how narratives in popular media can perpetuate or challenge existing power structures and colonial mentalities. Orden explores this through the complex dynamics behind the pop culture success of comics like “The United States of Captain America.” Her analysis delves into the diverse creative team behind these comics, including queer, Filipino, First Nation, and South African writers. And she critically questions whether Captain America, despite such diverse creative input, must still operate within a context of “imperial power dynamics” and the realities of the U.S. nation state.
Brooklyn Book Festival: Literary Community Craft Lab
2025.09.20
Connect and create with authors, writing mentors, and multimedia artists in a simultaneously programmed Community Craft Lab organized by Literary Craft Society (led by multi-awarded author and literary activist, Juliet Diaz) in partnership with the Talking Writing podcast. Featuring: The Unbannable Library exhibit of big books created by NYC writer-artist collaborations and produced by artist Paul Collins, multimedia performances by musician John Vogel and movement artist Mia Martelli, alongside write-in activities led by our mentors. The program culminates with readings from poet and 2025 VONA Poetry Residency Fellow, Vina Orden, and authors J. Bella M and Lilith Costa of Ampersand Writers Alliance.
Disrupting the Narrative: The Future of Literary Criticism, AAWW Page Turner Publishing Conference 2024
2024.11.09
Join Katie Yee, Ismail Ibrahim, Spencer Quong, TD Tso, and Vina Orden as they discuss what literary criticism looks like in the context of an ever-changing media and technological landscape. Panelists will unpack how narratives are crafted and consumed, all while making a case for literature’s ability to challenge the status quo and inspire social transformation. (Panelist)
“Worry About Yo’Self—Prioritizing Your Self-Care,” Baddie 2 Baddie Breast Cancer Podcast
2024.08.05
Host Tesha Bouler is joined by special guests Vina Orden and Raquel “Glammy” Fountain to dive deep into the importance of being a voice for those who can’t advocate for themselves and the need to bridge the gap in education and awareness about health issues. The discussion focuses on self-care, body awareness, and the significance of early screenings, particularly in the context of breast cancer.
The conversation also emphasizes the need for community support and celebrates the resilience and determination of cancer survivors. Throughout the discussion, Vina and Raquel share their personal coping mechanisms during cancer treatments and the impact of their experiences on uplifting and supporting others.
New York Writers Workshop @ Underland Gallery Reading Series, Spring 2024 #1
2024.02.24
Pichchenda Bao is a Cambodian American poet and writer. Her work has been featured in numerous publications, exhibitions, and events. She is co-editor of the forthcoming anthology, Braving the Body (Terrapin Books). She has received fellowships and support from Aspen Words, Kundiman, Bethany Arts Community, and Queens Council on the Arts. She lives, writes and raises her three children in New York City.
Twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Miho Kinnas is a translator, writer, and poet. She is the author of three poetry collections Today, Fish Only and Move Over, Bird, both by Math Paper Press and Waiting for Sunset to Bury Red Camellias by Free Verse Press. The poem, Three Shrimp Boats on The Horizon, was selected for Best American Poetry 2023. Also in 2023, a book of poetry collaborated with E. Ethelbert Miller, We Eclipse into the Other Side, was published by Pinyon Publishing. In addition, a rengay written with Lenard D. Moore appears in Tandem, Vol 2, No 2 and her translation in Tokyo Poetry Journal Vol 12. She writes literary essays and book reviews for journals including E-Markings, American Book Review and Literary Shanghai Alluvium.
Vina Orden is a freelance writer and editor as well as a human rights activist based in Lenapehoking/New York City. Her writing about Filipinx culture and community has appeared in Asian Journal, The FilAm, hella pinay, Hyperallergic, The Halo-Halo Review, and The Margins. As a poetry and creative nonfiction editor at Slant’d magazine, Vina supports and amplifies the voices of emerging Asian American writers. She is working on her first novel dedicated to young Filipinxs who don’t see themselves in books and is a 2024 Roots. Wounds. Words. YA Fiction Fellow. (Reader)
Otherwordy Authors Circle Virtual AMA
2024.02.12
Another round of virtual meet-up and resource sharing session for the Otherwordy Authors Circle. This is a safe, come-as-you-are space to share our ongoing projects, questions, and thoughts on writing life in general. February is known for Storytelling Week, so our topic and guest will be around this theme.
Our guest author and editor this month will be Vina Orden, who was a 2022 Open City Fellow and a participant in the Tin House YA Workshop and Kweli Sing the Truth! Mentee of the same year. Her novel-in-progress was recently chosen to be part of the 2024 Roots Wounds Words (RWW) Winter Writers Retreat.
We will also hear from our fellow Authors Circle member, Toya Gavin, about her thoughts on finishing her book proposal and sample chapters and the querying process.
Alalahanin: Artistic Reflections on Pilipino Cultural Bearing and Cultural Creation in the Diaspora
2023.10.28
For Pilipino American History Month, Alalahanin is an invitation to see the work of re-membering by artists and cultural hearts of the Pilipin@/x community in the diaspora that also hold so much healing work, where we understand the need to be in concern and care-full in our walk as creators. We invite our community to be in conversation and witness the complexity of being a diasporic, Pilipin@/x American artist, seeking to connect culture, ancestry, and history to our creative work and to have it be generative for the future generations to learn and heal from beyond our experiences in the present living. (Cultural bearer and workshop facilitator)
Poetic Currents: The Philippines and Beyond
2023.04.12
This April, in celebration of National Poetry Month, Sulo: The Philippines Studies Initiative at NYU proudly presents Poetic Currents: The Philippines and Beyond. Featuring Luis H. Francia, Vina Orden, Patrick Rosal, Renato Rosaldo, and Mary Louise Pratt. (Reader)
Black Henry: Charting New Ways Forward in Filipino History
2022.10.28
In her CUNY FORUM essay, writer Vina Orden discusses quincentennial commemoration of the Magellan-Elcano circumnavigation across the Pacific to South America, through the Strait of Magellan, and across the Pacific to Guam and the Philippines. What exactly was being commemorated depended on who you asked. Here, Orden presents a critique of colonial Spanish and Filipino history, utilizing Filipino journalist, poet, and playwright Luis H. Francia’s play, “Black Henry,” as a radical work of imagination and jumping off point to deconstruct colonial history. (Lecturer)
Flip the Script
2022.10.27
Celebrate critically acclaimed and badass Filipino American writers changing the narrative: Daphne Palasi Andreades, Victor Manibo, and Albert Samaha. A book reading benefit to secure farmers’ food for life. (Curator and co-host)
Celebrate Topaz Arts’ 22nd Year
2022.10.22
Topaz Arts’ 22nd Year Celebration will feature artists in visual arts, dance and poetry. In the gallery, view the exhibition “Powers Revealed in Printmaking” by Tenjin Ikeda, and new large-scale paintings by Todd B. Richmond.
Performances will start at 4pm, featuring dance by artist-in-residence Huiwang Zhang. Molissa Fenley and Paz Tanjuaquio perform simultaneous solos – Molissa dances Lava Field as a solo and Paz dances her work Dead Stars Still Shine, to music by John Bischoff, Piano 7hz.
Our Annual Fall open house in October also honors Philippine American History Month by featuring Filipinx artists. This year, Luis H. Francia and Vina Orden explore the theme of resistance and resilience, reading poems by Carlos Bulosan, as well as contemporary works.
Martial Law @ 50: To Remember Is to Resist
2022.09.20
On Tuesday, September 20, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop is proud to share a marathon reading curated by 2022 Open City Fellow Vina Orden in remembrance of a dark and deeply violent period in the history of the Philippines and in conjunction with the launch of the Martial Law @50 Notebook published by The Margins. (Curator and host)
A Conversation with the Creative Team of Atlantic Pacific Theatre’s “The Strange Case of Citizen de la Cruz”
2022.08.12
Kickstarter pledgers were treated to a conversation with members of the cast and creative team of Atlantic Pacific Theatre‘s “The Strange Case of Citizen de la Cruz,” a timely satire on nationalism, politics, and surveillance in the Philippines. The production was part of the Obie award-winning Ice Factory Festival 2022. (Facilitator)
AAWW at 30: The Village People
2022.04.30
A reading celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop with many of the writers who helped make the early days of the Workshop so special and continue to inspire us today. (Reader)
Blasian March Book Fair Panel
2022.04.23
A dialogue on writing, Black-Asian solidarity, and activism. (Moderator)
Mabuhay Guro
2022.04.21
Program in conjunction with the exhibition at the Newark Museum of Art, Carlos Villa: Worlds in Collision, featuring a performance of 5-minute stories from the Filipinx American community about the mentors that have changed our lives. (Performer)
UnHomeless NYC Exhibition
2022.03.07–04.14
The exhibition at Kingsborough Community College’s (KCC) Kingsborough Art Museum brings together 15 artists and artist groups to examine how the fundamental human right to housing has been eclipsed in this city since it first emerged in the late 1970s. Through artwork that highlights research, statistics, and activism, the exhibition offers a forum to better understand New York City’s housing crisis and think about our future as we emerge from the pandemic. (External communications and public relations consultant )
Quiet Before | Panel 4 | The Future
2021.05.20
Womankind, The 1882 Foundation, Eaton Workshop, Honolulu Theatre for Youth and Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center present Quiet Before: Unearthing Anti-Asian Violence, a six-part series dedicated to examining anti-Asian violence from its many complex perspectives.
This section is dedicated to the hopefulness of young leaders. How next generation activists think about intersectionality is nuanced and a progression from how elders worked in solidarity. How can we learn from the younger generation, who are in this moment working across race, gender, sexuality, and class? (Panelist)
Fil-Am Road: An Exhibition on Home & Nation at the Crossroads
2019.07.13–10.13
Karenderya, one of Esquire Magazine’s Top 20 new restaurants in America, will serve up food-for-thought with a new exhibition “Fil-Am Road,” featuring photography and paintings by Gloria and Vina Cacho Orden, and selected works from the collective, Baguio Group of Artists. It will be on view from July 13 to October 13, 2019. …
Cultural studies scholar and curator J. Faith Cacho Almiron explained, “The title draws upon a wordplay on the identification term ‘Filipino-American,’ as well as the movement between the Philippines and America. It also signifies an actual roadway in Baguio City, the Philippines where the Cacho ancestral home stands today. The artwork traverses across time and space from the 1970s to the contemporary moment, from the Philippines to New York, and beyond. Viewers will be privy to a conversation between two distinct yet linked generations–a mother and daughter dwelling at the intersection of art, politics and transformation.” (Read the rest of the feature in The FilAm.)
Raised Pinay 2019—The 3rd Generation
2019.06.28–06.29
Raised Pinay, 3rd Generation, is a collective of multi-generational, fiercely strong and vulnerable Pinays, sharing tough, touching, honest and empowering, self-written stories, of their experiences and experiences of their ancestors. Raised Pinay raised money for Roots of Health (Ugat Ng Kalusugan), the only non-profit fighting for reproductive justice in the Philippines through free clinical and health educational services. For more information visit raisedpinay.com and rootsofhealth.org. (Writer and performer)
We Make America Exhibition
2018.10.12–11.19
We Make America is a group of artists/designer/activists who meet to create signage and artifacts of protest and persuasion. We are over 5,000 members nationwide through Facebook. The group was formed in 2016 after the election of Donald J. Trump. We are centered in New York City and meet in various members’ studios for concentration on particular actions of protest and to fabricate and paint signage, buttons, pins, torches, giant “Pussy Gates” as for the Women’s march last spring. Due to the composition of artists and designers and creative makers in the group, the props and signs are spectacular and graphic and beautifully painted. “The Pussy Gates,” referring to Trump’s improprieties and the #MeToo era we are experiencing, were shown on nationwide NBC news after the march. The Pratt workshop and exhibition are designed to foster activism and to rally students to get out and vote. It is about conveying the message that everyone’s voice is important. (Artist)
Vina Orden 
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