Emilly Prado

SPEAKING | Low-Res Creative Writing MFA at PNCA
2026-06-27 09:00 - 10:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Google Meet
The Whole Truth, the Half Truth, and Something Like the Truth.” Examining memory may be what initially draws some of us towards writing, but the truth is our memories are malleable and the line between fiction and fact can feel blurry, especially when invoking imagination. The boundaries of truth, it turns out, aren’t universally drawn. So how do we write into the spaces we can’t remember or the moments where contradictions abound? The times we want to paint as black or white, but where gray seems to be the only color available in our palettes? This lecture examines truth as a spectrum, culling scientific data alongside quotes from writers with varying perspectives on what counts as ‘nonfiction’. We’ll walk away with generative prompts and exercises to sharpen our craft while guiding us towards carving our very own lines of truth. Open to the public via Google Meet for free and in person at 721 NW 9th Ave, Graduate Professional Center, EcoTrust Building.
Google Meet Link: https://meet.google.com/cfs-ktvd-pto

Kangkang Li Kovacs in Conversation With Emilly Prado
2026-06-29 19:00 - 20:00 | Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St, Portland, Oregon, 97209, United States
Inspired by the author’s own family history, and spanning the past hundred years of Chinese history, Kangkang Li Kovacs’s multi-generational family saga explores how women survive the tsunamis of history.

Nothing to My Name (Viking) chronicles the intertwined fates of three generations of Chinese women: Ah Xue, Mimosa, and Fei. The Grandmother, Ah Xue, witnesses the rise of the Communist Revolution while earning a meager living combing the hair of the few wealthy ladies in her small fishing village. Mimosa, the Mother, grows up in the shadow of her parents’ struggles as the growing tension of the Cultural Revolution threatens to pull their family apart. And Fei Fei, the Daughter, brought up as a “boy” by her activist father, grapples with gender identity in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Awash in the tides of societal upheaval, Ah Xue, Mimosa, and Fei Fei are all driven by the instinct to survive, weathering hardship that splinters the boundary between the personal and the political. For readers of sweeping fiction like Pachinko and Homegoing, Nothing to My Name is a braided history of suffering and dignity, of loss and reckoning, and of the unexpected joy that sustains family bonds.

Kovacs will be joined in conversation by Emilly Prado, author of Funeral for Flaca.
