"Love Can’t Feed You" explores a segment of the Filipino American experience in New York City from the point of view of an immigrant girl who is part Chinese and part Filipino as she watches her Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) mother assimilate to not just an American identity, but to a freer version of herself. Queenie’s family begins to fall apart as everyone stretches themselves to assimilate, and this pushes Queenie to explore the nature of relationships—her relationship with her mother, her father, her own sexuality, as well as her relationship with the new country she immigrated to.

Cherry Lou Sy is a writer and playwright originally from the Philippines currently based in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BA at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at NYU and her MFA in playwriting from Brooklyn College, where she has been an adjunct lecturer in the English and American Studies departments. Cherry is also a teacher with PEN America’s DREAMing Out Loud. She has received fellowships and residencies from VONA, Tin House, and elsewhere. Love Can’t Feed You is her debut novel.

Reception and light refreshments at 6:00 p.m. Author Talk begins at 6:30.