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    Interview with Minnesota-based queer Lao American poet and spoken word artist Saymoukda Vongsay. 

    Listen in on the show as we discuss her writing. Vongsay reads a couple of her widely published poems and essays including her award winning work in progress When Everything was Everything which describes her life as a refugee immigrant to St. Paul, Minnesota. Her poem Why My Name Really isn’t My Name, which she also reads, is also reflective of her life: born in a refugee camp and tracing her identity as a child, teenager and later a young woman. We also talked about her growing relationship with her mother and a poem she wrote about the oft tenuous and loving relationship between mothers and their daughters. 

    Vongsay is the author of No Regrets, Chair of the 2010 National Lao American Writers Summit, inaugural winner of the 2010 Alfred C. Carey Prize in Spoken Word from New York, recipient of a Loft Literary Center scholarship to attend Robert McKee’s Story Seminar, advisory board member of the 2010 MPLS Asian Film Festival, and was recently recognized by the Lao Professionals of Illinois for her literary accomplishments. She is pursuing an interdisciplinary Masters in Public Policy, Social Work, and Creative Writing at the University of Minnesota. 

    (via newminnesotans)

    (Source: newminnesotans)

    2. 9 months ago  Notes (8)
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