Writers From the Vietnamese Diaspora | The Presidio

Submitted by the Event Organizer

Writers Kevin Minh Allen, Violet Kupersmith, and Aimee Phan read from their work, which spans genres of fiction, ghost stories, poetry, and essay, and explore how it relates to their diverse identities and experiences as members of the Vietnamese diaspora. Local author Susan Ito will moderate.

PANELISTS:

• Kevin Minh Allen was born Nguyễn Đức Minh on December 5, 1973 near Sài Gòn, Vietnam to a Vietnamese mother and American father who remain unknown to him. He was adopted by a couple from Rochester, NY and grew up in Webster, NY with his two younger sisters. In 2000, he moved to Seattle to pursue a life less ordinary. Kevin is a poet and essayist who has had his essays and poetry published in numerous print and online publications, such as Eye To The Telescope, The International Examiner, and Northwest Asian Weekly. He had his first poetry chapbook, My Proud Sacrifice, published in July 2014.
• Violet Kupersmith is the author of The Frangipani Hotel, a collection of contemporary Vietnamese ghost stories. Her mother is a former boat refugee from Da Nang, Vietnam, and her father is American. She spent a year teaching English in the Mekong Delta on a Fulbright fellowship, and was the 2014 Gerald Freund Fellow at the MacDowell Colony. Violet currently lives in Saigon and is at work on her first novel.
• Aimee Phan is the author of the novel The Reeducation of Cherry Truong and the story collection We Should Never Meet, both published by St. Martin’s Press. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, USA Today, Salon,and The Rumpus, among others. Her fellowships and residencies include the National Endowment of the Arts, Barbara Deming Memorial/Money for Women Fund, Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center, MacDowell Arts Colony and Hedgebrook. She currently chairs the Writing and Literature program at California College of the Arts in San Francisco.

Moderator:

• Susan Ito is the author of the memoir The Mouse Room. She co-edited the literary anthology A Ghost At Heart’s Edge: Stories & Poems of Adoption (North Atlantic Books). Her work has appeared in Growing Up Asian American, Choice, Literary Mama, The Bellevue Literary Review, Making More Waves and elsewhere. She writes and teaches at the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto, and the MFA Program at Bay Path College.

This panel discussion is a part of the exhibition Operation Babylift: Perspectives and Legacies program series, co-curated by the Presidio Trust and the Adoption Museum Project.

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