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Residencies
DVAN is proud to support emerging and established writers of the Southeast Asian diaspora through our writing residencies in the United States, France, and Việt Nam. From the serene Hudson Valley to the lush hills of Huế, our residency programs provide fellows with the time, space, and resources they need to fully immerse themselves in their creative projects.
DVAN 2023 Writers’ Retreat in Southern France
We are thrilled to announce the first cohort for the DVAN Writers’ Residency in France, funded by the Luce Foundation. The two-week residency was held from September 1-14, 2023, at La Maison du Pont Vieux in the beautiful village of Cazilhac in the Occitania region of Southern France.
The 2023 DVAN Writers’ Retreat in Southern France was designed to create a relaxing environment and rejuvenating experience, allowing our writers to connect and exchange ideas. The magic of this residency lies in the freedom to come together and create connections, be they artistic, communal, spiritual, or otherwise!
The residency culminated with a large public event and reading, co-sponsored by ICI Vietnam, at the Jean-Pierre Melville Library in Paris on September 15, 2023.
The 2023 Cohort
Doan Bui
FranceMemoirist, author of My Father’s Silence
Thi Bui
USAGraphic Artist, author of The Best We Could Do
Nguyen Qui Duc
VietnamMemoirist, author of Where the Ashes Are: Odyssey of a Vietnamese Family
Anna Moï
FranceNovelist, author of Black Rice
Hoai Huong Aubert-Nguyen
FranceNovelist and Poet, author of Leaves in the Wind
Vaan Nguyen
IsraelPoet, author of The Truffle Eye
Bao Phi
USASpoken-Word Poet, author of Song | Sing
Thuân
FranceNovelist, author of Chinatown
Paul Tran
USAPoet, author of All the Flowers Kneeling
Vu Tran
USANovelist, author of dragonfish
Thank you so much, from the very bottom of my heart, for the chance to meet and spend time with you as part of this spectacular residency in France. It’s so clear not just from much labor but also how much heart you put into making this historic gathering possible, and I will always be in your debt for the love you give to bring us all here--and making all the magic and conversations and memories and art began around the kitchen table, something, I know, will endure and last forever.”
Paul Tran
France Residency Fellow, 2023I’d like to offer my heartfelt thanks to the Luce Foundation for their generosity and support of the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network. My two weeks at the DVAN Artist Residency in Cazilhac, France was a genuinely transformative experience for me. I not only made important progress on my writing, but also had an incredibly joyful and enlightening experience with all my fellow Vietnamese writers from America, France, and Israel. I learned so much about them, about myself, and all the similar and different, surprising and unsurprising, ways we’ve all negotiated our lives as artists and diasporic Vietnamese people. I will take the experience with me long into the future, and it will undoubtedly help me in my writing and in my life, so I’m very grateful for the Luce Foundation’s contribution to that.”
Vu Tran
France Residency Fellow, 2023DVAN Residencies at Millay Arts
In partnership with Millay Arts and launched in 2022, the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network (DVAN) offers annual short-term artist residencies to nurture and stimulate emerging and established writers of the Vietnamese and Southeast Asian diaspora. We are grateful and honored to continue to collaborate with Millay Arts, one of the nation’s leading and most established residency programs. Located in the Hudson Valley, nestled against the Berkshire foothills of Austerlitz, New York, Millay Arts’ seven acres border the beautiful Harvey Mountain State Forest and the home and gardens of the famed early 20th-century poet, activist, and Pulitzer Prize winner Edna St. Vincent Millay.
Luce – Global Collective Residency
The DVAN-Luce Global Collective Residency for Women & Nonbinary Writers brought together a cohort of international and US-based diasporic Southeast Asian/ Vietnamese writers who identify as female or nonbinary. The residents were selected through a juried process for a fully funded two-week stay at Millay Arts in upstate New York from November 27-December 12, 2023.
The collaborative and community-focused opportunity was made possible by a generous grant from the Luce Foundation, for which DVAN is deeply grateful.
The 2023 Cohort
Thanh Bui
Austin, TXSi-Min Chong (Min)
Providence, RILan P. Duong
Pasadena, CACarolyn Huynh
Los Angeles, CAAmy Lam
Portland, ORSusan Lieu
Seattle, WAMai Tran
Queens, NYAfter participating in this residency, I have a renewed sense of energy and am so excited for the future of Southeast Asian art. I'm grateful to DVAN and all the cohort members for their trust and generosity.”
DVAN-Luce Global Collective Residency participant
DVAN-Millay New Author Residency
The DVAN-Millay New Author Residency is a special partnership with Millay Arts to celebrate and uplift one author who recently published their first book. For this residency, a new author was selected through a juried process for a funded one-month residency.
Kevin Nguyen
Brooklyn, New YorkKhải Đơn
Saigon, VietnamVivian Pham
Western Sydney, AustraliaLy Tran
New York, New YorkI am so enormously grateful to DVAN for providing the two-week residency at Millay Arts. I made great progress on my next book, while also enjoying the crisp fall weather and taking long walks to enjoy the foliage. Like many writers, I have a full-time job, and getting this time, space, and focus to dedicate to a project is invaluable. Creativity is a precious act that also requires the opportunity to be productive. Every bit of help matters, and I’m thankful to DVAN for providing so much of it.”
Kevin Nguyen
DVAN-Millay New Author Residency Fellow, 2025The DVAN-Millay Residency is a valuable experience for me as a writer, especially as a Vietnamese living in Viet Nam, who rarely has exposure to works of international artists. For me, as a first-time novelist, the experience was quite eye-opening…My book has a lot to do with climate change. By talking to residents from the US and Europe, I have a new sense of how people from this side of the world look at climate change. The most valuable gift that the DVAN-Millay Residency gave me was time, the time to have quiet space to work on my novel without being worried about earning a living, or daily chores that I would have to do on a daily basis. Having a chef cooking for every resident also helps to reduce the daily stress and focus on my work. Thank you very much, DVAN, for this unique experience.”
Khải Đơn
DVAN-Millay New Author Residency Fellow, 2024I’ve fallen back in love with writing. And the other residents have become another family!”
Vivian Pham
DVAN-Millay New Author Residency Fellow, 2023I’ve been back from Millay for quite some time now, enough to readjust to “the real world.” I found myself thinking one afternoon, gosh, if only there was a mountain I could hike right this moment! If only I was surrounded by beautiful mossy woods with placards of poetry strewn throughout...if only I had the spirit of [Edna St.] Vincent to guide and inspire me...And then I realized that I could still conjure it all, that the magic of those four glorious weeks has never left me. I am still there, dancing along Poet’s Trail, spellbound, dreaming.”
Ly Tran
DVAN-Millay New Author Residency Fellow, 2022DVAN Writers’ Residency in Việt Nam
In January 2025, a cohort of talented writers participated in DVAN’s two-week Writers’ Residency in Việt Nam from January 6 – January 20. Located at the idyllic Kim Son Arthome in Huế, the residency offered fellows the opportunity to focus on their craft while drawing inspiration from the beauty and charm of Việt Nam’s ancient capital. Fellows enjoyed free access to the captivating contemporary art museum Lebadang Memory Space adjacent to Kim Son. Lebadang Memory Space is dedicated to Lê Bá Đảng, a prolific and internationally celebrated French Vietnamese painter, engraver, and sculptor born in Huế in 1921.
The two-week residency ended with a private reading and reception hosted by DVAN and Hanoi Friends of Nguyễn Quí Đức at the beautiful Azerai la Residence, with musical performances by a local Huế singing troupe, Hanoi jazz band All That Mojo and saxophonist Bảo Long.
The residency program was made possible by the generous support of the Luce Foundation. Thank you to our hosts Kim Son Arthome, Lebadang Memory Space and Azerai, who made this a truly memorable experience.
Alexandra Huynh
USAH’Abigail (Abi) Mlo
USANguyễn Bích Lan
Việt NamNguyễn Hiền Trang
Việt NamNguyễn Phan Quế Mai
Việt NamY-Danair Niehrah
USATruong Tran
USAThis was my first sojourn to Vietnam, and I couldn't have imagined a better way to spend it than surrounded by other Vietnamese writers, who became like family to me. It was a joy to share our writing with each other, but it was even more valuable to co-create memories that will inspire my writing for a long time to come…My commitment to writing as an expression of personal and political resistance has been renewed in the presence of these brilliant writers. Thank you, DVAN, for making this transformative experience possible for me."
Alexandra Huynh
Việt Nam Residency Fellow, 2025DVAN has provided a nurturing space where storytelling flourishes. With ample time to write, reflection deepens, allowing ideas to unfold naturally. The community’s support encourages exploration, helping stories take shape with authenticity and care. In this environment, writing is not rushed but given the space it deserves—growing organically, like a river finding its course.”
Nguyễn Hiền Trang
Việt Nam Residency Fellow, 2025Djerassi/DVAN Retreat & Residency
The Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network (DVAN) in partnership with the Djerassi Resident Artists Program offers nurturing, stimulating short- and long-term artist residencies for emerging and established writers of the Vietnamese and Southeast Asian diaspora annually. This generous collaboration with one of the nation’s leading and most established residency programs began in 2018, upon an invitation from Djerassi director Margot Knight to Viet Thanh Nguyen, a Djerassi resident artist alumni. The beautiful Djerassi Artists residence is located an hour South of San Francisco, on a 583-acre ranch above the crest of the Santa Cruz mountains, with views to the Pacific. Our residencies at Djerassi include:
- A one-week retreat for 10 writers, poets, or artists
- A one-month solo residency for an emerging writer, poet, or artist
I felt supported by DVAN, especially meeting Isabelle Pelaud and Kathy Nguyen on Friday my first week at Djerassi - their visit helped me feel grounded in a new environment and I felt affirmed. To receive support from a national/global organization like DVAN means that the work I am doing to lift up Laotian and Southeast Asian stories in American theater is necessary and valued.”
Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay
DVAN-Djerassi Artist Resident, October 2023In September, I will be starting a fellowship at Stanford, so I knew that when I left Minnesota to attend a month-long DVAN residency at Djerassi, I was also leaving for the foreseeable future. I packed up my entire apartment, filled my car with as much stuff as I could, and drove to California from Minneapolis. Djerassi, compared to the flat plains of the Midwest, couldn’t be any further from the familiar, but it has been the perfect place for me to gather myself as I transition into the unfamiliar. It’s beautiful here. I’ve never seen any place like it. After dinner, we’d hike up the big hill to see the sunset above the fog line. Even my writing is inspired by the unfamiliar as I find myself exploring new genres. It’s been exciting. I don’t really know what I’m doing. But I’ve also learned here that you can be surprised by everything, even the things right in front of you. I say this as I learned that what I thought was the blue sky just beyond the mountaintops, is actually the ocean.”
Hieu Minh Nguyen
DVAN Djerassi Artist Resident, August 2019Other Writers Retreats & Gatherings
DVAN connects writers and artists with patrons worldwide who are interested in hosting members of our network for the purpose of dialogues, collaborations, and work.