Forthcoming from Red Hen Press, September 10, 2019. “Like a strip of curtain between the dead and the living, Fire Summer is at once ephemeral and expansive. A haunting debut from a writer whose characters, lovingly described, pass not only through rivers and airports, but also despair and separation. We are ferried with them to the […]
By boat, train, plane, or royal rock elephant, I will be there. Will you? ~~ TRIDENT BOOKSELLERS Boston, MA with Alan Lightman Monday, September 16, 2019 ~~ KGB BAR 85 East 4th St NYC 1003 Tuesday, September 17, 2019 ~~ HAMILTON COLLEGE Clinton, NY Thursday, September 19, 2019 ~~ UNIVERSITY of HAWAI‘I at MĀNOA […]
Where the stream emptied into a lake, she saw a footbridge swaying in the breeze. Go across the bridge to the marketplace. She looked around. She heard the buzzing of a market and smelled roasted meat. She crossed the footbridge. The open marketplace spread along the lakeside. “Mua đi! Mua đi!” a blind peddler cried, clutching her basket of […]
I was born in central Vietnam, grew up in the northeastern US, and now live in Hawaiʻi. I received my BA in creative writing from Hamilton College, MA in second language studies and PhD in English from UH Mānoa. My debut novel, Fire Summer, is a revision of my dissertation, part of which appeared in Lost Lake Folk Opera in […]
The story of Hòn Vọng Phu, a wife who turns into stone waiting for her husband’s return, shapes and is shaped by the physical terrains of Vietnam and its people’s artistic expressions. In all four provinces, from central highland Vietnam to its northern border with China, stands a wife rock atop a mountain cradling a […]
A folk hero of Vietnam, Trạng Quỳnh has bequeathed laughter to generations of Vietnamese. This folk character is based on a historical figure, Nguyễn Quỳnh who lived during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Trạng Quỳnh exploits the polyglossic and heteroglossic conditions of Vietnam, a boundary-crosser who disrupts and transforms the established Truth of […]
To see a World in a Grain of Sand / And a Heaven in a Wild Flower / Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand / And Eternity in an hour –William Blake
In our present day of globalization in which cross-cultural understanding is crucial in establishing a worldwide community of diversity within unity, striving to be mirrors for others as well as seeking mirrors in others for self-reflection is necessary for genuine understanding. Both components are essential in our work toward cross-cultural understanding, toward a “fusion of […]
