Hickory – The Lenoir-Rhyne University Visiting Writers Series is in its 33rd season and will host a variety of authors, poets, editors and more in both a virtual and in-person format for the academic year. Join us on October 21, at 7pm, as we present Ocean Vuong, a poet, essayist and novelist. This event is virtual and requires registration at https://www.lr.edu/public-events/visiting-writers-series.

Ocean Vuong is the author of The New York Times bestselling novel, “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous,” a painful but extraordinary coming-of-age story about surviving the aftermath of trauma. It is forthcoming in 30 languages. A 2019 MacArthur Fellow and 2014 Pushcart Prize recipient, he is also the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection “Night Sky with Exit Wounds,” which was among The New York Times critics’ top books of 2016 and a winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Whiting Award, the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry, and the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection. His honors include fellowships or grants from the Academy of American Poets, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, and the Poetry Foundation.

Vuong’s writings have been featured in the American Poetry Review, which awarded him the Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize; The Atlantic; Granta; Harper’s Magazine; The Nation; The New Republic; The New York Times; The New Yorker; The Paris Review; and The Village Voice. Selected by Foreign Policy magazine as one of its 100 Leading Global Thinkers of 2016, Vuong was also named by BuzzFeed to its list of 32 essential Asian American writers and has been profiled on NPR’s All Things Considered, Interview, The New Yorker, PBS NewsHour, Poets & Writers, and Teen Vogue.

Born in Saigon, Vietnam, and raised in Hartford, Connecticut, he currently lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he serves as an associate professor in the Master of Fine Arts for poets and writers program at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Vuong is openly gay and is a practicing Zen Buddhist.

*Pre-registration is required for any virtual presentations. Lenoir-Rhyne University works to provide a safe and healthy environment for conferences and events. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, certain protocols need to be followed. Please follow lr.edu/coronavirus for proper procedures on attending Lenoir-Rhyne events.

To read more about this year’s speakers, visit: lr.edu/vws. For information on registration, visit the Visiting Writers Series calendar page.
Ocean Vuong