Program Type:
Author EventProgram Description
Event Details
Join the Library and Adventures by the book for a special author event in honor of Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Month! New York Times bestselling author Alka Joshi, TikTok and IG megastar and founder of Ahnest Kitchen, Sarah Ahn, debut novelist and attorney Rosa Kwon Easton, and New York Times bestselling author Kristina McMorris will all be sharing their stories.
This event is free and open to the public. Seating is first-come, first-served, subject to availability. Limited preferred seating is available with purchase of one of the listed authors books through Adventures by the Book. Please visit https://adventuresbythebook.com/calendar-event/aapi-coronadopl-5-13-25/ for more information.
Alka Joshi is the internationally bestselling author of the Jaipur Trilogy: The Henna Artist, The Secret Keeper of Jaipur and The Perfumist of Paris. She was born in India and came to the U.S. with her family at the age of nine. She has a BA from Stanford University and an MFA from California College of Arts.
Her debut novel, The Henna Artist, immediately became a New York Times Bestseller, a Reese Witherspoon Bookclub Pick, an LA Times Bestseller, a Toronto Star and Globe & Mail Bestseller, an Indie Bookstores Bestseller, a Cosmopolitan Best Audiobook, and an Amazon and Goodreads favorite. It was Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, has been translated into 29 languages and optioned as an episodic series.
Six Days in Bombay is her fourth novel and is a sweeping tale of identity and self-discovery that takes readers from Bombay to Prague, Florence, Paris and London, to uncover the mystery behind a famous painter’s death.
Sarah Ahn is a TikTok and Instagram media sensation with millions of followers, who started her social media and website Ahnest Kitchen to showcase her mother’s cooking via real-time videos of her home life living with immigrant parents, reconnecting to her heritage, experiencing her mom’s love through her cooking, and sharing recipes that reflect the heart of Korean cuisine.
In her new book, Umma: A Korean Mom’s Kitchen Wisdom and 100 Recipes, a 384-page deep dive into Korean home cooking, mother and daughter share decades of wisdom and techniques that help anyone cook like a Korean umma. Every recipe has a story, some profoundly moving, as her mother share memories of her own mother’s cooking in Korea while Sara ties foods to family life and growing up in Southern California.
Accompanied by vibrant photography, Umma isn’t just a cookbook – it’s a heartfelt tribue to the love, resilience, and culinary legacy of the women who have shaped cuisine: the Korean umma.
Rosa Kwon Easton is a Korean American writer, lawyer, and elected trustee of the Palos Verdes Library District. She is an Anaphora Writing Residency Fellow and has been published in CRAFT Literary, Writer’s Digest, StoryCenter.org and others. She is a graduate of Smith College, Columbia University, and Boston College Law School, and lives in sunny Southern California with her husband and Maltipoo.
Her debut novel, White Mulberry, is a rich, deeply moving portrait of a young Korean woman in 1930’s Japan who is torn between two worlds and must reclaim her true identity to provide a future for her family.
Kristina McMorris is the New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of two novellas and eight historical novels, including the million-copy bestseller Sold on a Monday.
Set in 1880s Oregon, her new book, The Girls of Good Fortune, features a woman who awakens in an underground cell amid Portland’s notorious Shanghai Tunnels. Accustomed to adapting for survival—being half-Chinese passing as white—she must rush to retrace her path before unearthed secrets prove deadly.