ÁCCENTED #28 | Writing Myself Into Existence
Welcome to the eighth and final ÁCCENTED show of the third season! Children’s author Hanh Bui and 2021 National Youth Poet Laureate Alexandra Huynh will join hosts Viet Thanh Nguyen and Philip Nguyen for this episode titled, “Writing Myself Into Existence: Creating Reflections of Our Lived Experiences.”
In the first segment of our show, our hosts will speak with childrens’ author Hanh Bui about her newest book, The Yellow Ao Dai and her upcoming title to be released in 2024, “Ánh’s New Word.” They will discuss creating characters and narratives that Hanh could identify with and who looked like her for future generations.
The second segment will be with 2021 National Youth Poet Laureate Alexandra Huynh. As the fifth person to hold this title, we will explore her love for poetry, her journey to being recognized, what she’s up to now, and what the future holds.
The final segment of our show will bring all our guests and hosts in open conversation with one another as they answer questions from our live audience about their work, process, lives, etc.
This ÁCCENTED event is FREE and open to the public and will take place on Thursday, May 25th, 2023 at 6:00 p.m. PST, on Zoom.
ABOUT THE GUESTS:
Inspired by her first teacher at the refugee camp, Hanh Bui pursued a master’s degree in Early Childhood Education and taught second grade. Hanh’s commitment to celebrating her heritage includes giving presentations at school visits about her refugee experience to children studying immigration as part of their school curriculum. She serves as co-chair of the Equity and Inclusion Team for the Mid-Atlantic region of SCBWI. She is a member of Diverse Verse and has been featured in Highlights For Children magazine and Next Avenue. She is the author of The Yellow Áo Dài, April 2023 and Ánh’s New Word, June 2024 (Feiwel & Friends/Macmillan).
Alexandra Huynh is a 20-year-old Vietnamese American poet from Sacramento, CA. She is a 2020 Sacramento Youth Poet Laureate, a program of Sacramento Area Youth Speaks. In 2021, Alexandra became the 5th National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States, where she served as a cultural ambassador of the national youth poetry community.
As a second-generation individual, Alexandra employs poetry as a tool of self-reclamation and social justice for marginalized communities. She embodies a radical pride in her Vietnamese heritage and seeks to write her story outside of the context of whiteness. Through poetry, she hopes to give young people a vocabulary to articulate their lived experiences and empower them to shape their future.
Her work has been featured by the likes of NPR, NBC, CBS This Morning, PBS, and The Washington Post. In 2022, Alexandra was featured in the award-winning children’s book, Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls: 100 Inspiring Young Changemakers. Later that year, she joined the international literacy nonprofit Room to Read as a member of the Book Creator Collective. In 2023, Alexandra became the Inaugural Artist-in-Residence at the Harvard University Asia Center.
Alex currently studies English and Asian American Studies at Stanford University, where she aims to combine her passions for creative writing and civic engagement.
ABOUT THE HOST:
VIET THANH NGUYEN is the author of The Sympathizer, Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War, The Refugees, Race and Resistance: Literature, Politics and Asian America, and Chicken of the Sea, written with his son Ellison. His most recent book is The Committed, the sequel to The Sympathizer.
PHILIP NGUYEN is the emcee for ÁCCENTED: Dialogues in Diaspora presented by the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network (DVAN). He teaches Asian American Studies in the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University and is the Executive Director for the Vietnamese American Roundtable, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in San Jose, California. Philip serves as the President of the Union of North American Vietnamese Student Associations (UNAVSA) and as the Co-Chair of the Young Vietnamese Americans (YVA) Committee for PIVOT – The Progressive Vietnamese American Organization.
