DVAN at the Library Reading Series | Writers for Writers – LNY Celebration
Join us for our First In-Person Event of the Year!
Bring in the Year of the Dragon with some DVAN readers, light refreshments, and a whole lot of excitement! Meet us at the library!
Our first “DVAN at the Library” reading presents: “Writers for Writers – A Lunar New Year Celebration,” featuring: Truong Tran, Damon Potter, and DVAN’s own team: Isabelle Thuy Pelaud, Kathy Nguyen, Vina Vo, Julie Thi Underhill, Sydney Van To, Carolyn Ho, Anh-Vy Phan, and Annika Le. The night will be filled with poetry and prose!
About the Reading Series
The ‘DVAN at the Library’ 2024 reading series, a collaboration between the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network and the San Francisco Public Library, spotlights Vietnamese and Southeast Asian diasporic writers and poets. From spoken word to memoir, this quarterly series showcases both established and emerging voices, and celebrates cultural heritage through works that explore personal narratives, historical contexts, and a spectrum of cultural identities shaping Southeast Asian artists today. To confirm a FREE spot, please register with an Eventbrite ticket. On-site registration is also available! However, space is limited due to venue capacity.
About the Readers
TRUONG TRAN was born in Saigon, Vietnam. He is the author of eight books of poetry, including Four Letter Words (Apogee Press, 2008), Book of the Other: Small in Comparison (Kaya Press, 2021) which won the American Book Award, and Looking and Seeing (Omnidawn, 2025), which he coauthored with Damon Potter. He has won numerous awards, grants, and fellowships. Truong lives in San Francisco and teaches at Northwestern University (previously Mills College) in Oakland, California.
DAMON POTTER lives and works in San Francisco. He is the author of 100 Words (Omnidawn, 2021), and Looking and Seeing (Omnidawn, 2025), which are coauthored with Truong Tran.
ISABELLE THUY PELAUD is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network and an Associate Professor of Asian American Studies at SF State. She is the author of This Is All I Choose To Tell: History and Hybridity in Vietnamese American Literature (2011) and numerous other academic essays and works. She co-edited Troubling Borders: An Anthology of Art and Literature by Southeast Asian Women in the Diaspora (2014). Isabelle has a Ph.D., in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley.
KATHY NGUYỄN is a writer, editor, and COO of DVAN. She taught Asian American Studies, History, Literature & Film at SF City College and Berkeley City College, and was the Editor of Nhà, an award-winning Vietnamese diasporic arts & culture magazine. Kathy co-edited Troubling Borders: An Anthology of Art and Literature by Southeast Asian Women in the Diaspora. She has received numerous honors and awards and has an MFA from Warren Wilson College and an MA in Southeast Asian Studies from the East-West Center, UH Mānoa.
VINA VO is a storyteller and facilitator who aims to bridge the cultural, generational, and geographic divide caused by displacement and diaspora. Vina co-leads and directs a writing program called this is my body to support women of color to write and perform their own solo performance. She is the co-editor for the anthology of this is my body published by Nomadic Press in 2019. She is working on her first novel. She is the co-founder of the Novalia Collective and Creo Tea & Coffee.
SYDNEY VAN TO is a PhD student at UC Berkeley. He is also the deputy editor of diaCRITICS and the project manager of Ink & Blood, an imprint which publishes literature of the Vietnamese diaspora. His writing has been published in Amerasia, Canadian Literature, and The Chicago Review of Books, among others.
JULIE THI UNDERHILL is an interdisciplinary artist based in Berkeley, California. She has published her writing in journals and anthologies including Inheriting the War: Poetry & Prose by Descendants of Vietnam Veterans and Refugees and Troubling Borders: An Anthology of Art and Literature by Southeast Asian Women in the Diaspora. She is a Senior Adjunct Professor in Writing and Literature at California College of the Arts, where she’s the faculty advisor for the literary journal Humble Pie.
CAROLYN HO is a Vietnamese American poet, artist, and mom. She’s a Kundiman fellow, recipient of the SF Foundation’s Phelan Award, Nomadic Press Award, and an SF Arts Commission grant recipient, among other mentionables. She’s folded 100K+ cranes over the past decade, but the crane as a symbol is irrelevant and a byproduct of coping with child-rearing, elderly-care, and poor life choices. SF Weekly coined her as one of several “Best Writers Without a Book.” Carolyn has an MFA/MA from SF State.
ANH-VY PHAN is a Vietnamese-American visual designer and writer focusing on themes of gender and Vietnamese diasporic mother-daughter relationship dynamics. Their works have been published with UC Berkeley’s Asian American Research Journal and a joint imprint between the Southeast Asian Student Coalition and Eastwind Books of Berkeley entitled The Blood in Our Veins, The Roots to Our Trees (2021). They hold a BA from UC Berkeley in Political Science and Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies.
ANNIKA LE has been with DVAN since September 2022. She began as a Production Intern, became an Associate Producer, and is now leading as the Producer of Áccented. Annika is from Portland, Oregon, and graduated in 2021 from Seattle University, where she majored in Creative Writing and minored in Writing Studies. Her poems have been published in The Palouse Review, Aisthesis, and Fragments Literary Magazine. Aside from writing, Annika loves playing soccer and crocheting.
Please note, by registering for DVAN’s events via Eventbrite – DVAN may contact you with information about future events, programs, and donor/sponsor opportunities.