MCPL celebrates Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with a visit from Vietnamese-American children’s author Bao Phi.

MCPL celebrates Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with a visit from Vietnamese-American children’s author Bao Phi. Bao’s work has been featured in two collections from Coffee House Press, Asian American Literary Review, and in the Anthology The Spoken Word Revolution. His fiction and essays have also appeared in Octavia’s Brood: Stories from Social Justice Movements and A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota.

He is the author of the award-winning books A Different Pond, Song I Sing, Thousand Star Hotel, Hello Mandarin Duck! and My Footprints. Awards for his work include the prestigious Caldecott Award, Charlotte Zolotow Award, Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature, and a Minnesota Book Award from the Friends of the Saint Paul Library.

Bao was the first Vietnamese-American performer featured on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam and created the Loft Literary Center’s Equilibrium Writers series which won an award from the Minnesota Council of Non-Profits. He was a Visiting Critic in the English Department of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York during the 2021-2022 school year.

Q&A after the presentation, followed by a book signing reception featuring complimentary light fare.

Some of Bao Phi’s books will be available at the event for purchase from the Friends of the Library Montgomery County (FOLMC) or by visiting https://bookshop.org/shop/folmc.

The Contemporary Conversations series is sponsored by Friends of the Library Montgomery County (FOLMC) and Classroom 2 Community (C2C).

Registration required.