diaCRITICS
@diacritics-dvan.bsky.social
📤 125
📥 66
📝 85
magazine of the diasporic vietnamese artists network
Read a new poem by Victoria Thuylinh Pham.
diacritics.org/2026/04/jack...
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Jackfruit - diaCRITICS
Jackfruit sizzle like fleshcarried through thecurves of your mouth / Mẹ's voice wrapped in bare hands_______spilling seeds / an extension - from one land_______and an accent mark to another_______about our names giving way and thenreceding_______from Thuylinh to Thuy_______and the nước that never quenches thirstbecause it's never enough and only separates_______this line between_______what I know of
https://diacritics.org/2026/04/jackfruit/
2 days ago
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"I was 11 when cancer took my mother and never gave her back."
diacritics.org/2026/03/canc...
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Cancer Took My Mother & Food Was Her Love Language - diaCRITICS
Paired With: Bún Bò Huế & the Taste of EnoughFor When You Need to Feed a VillagePlay Song: “Heal the World” by Michael Jackson Amuse-Bouche: The Hunger That Never Leaves Hunger isn’t just about food.I...
https://diacritics.org/2026/03/cancer-took-my-mother-food-was-her-love-language/
17 days ago
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Eric Nguyen
18 days ago
just updated
@diacritics-dvan.bsky.social
's books to review list! am i missing anything? want to review something?
docs.google.com/document/d/1...
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diaCRITICS Books to Review
diaCRITICS Book Review Wishlist Thank you for your interest in reviewing books for diaCRITICS. Below are the books we would love to be reviewed! If you’re interested in reviewing any of these titles ...
https://docs.google.com/document/d/108XhWBLkE1Yzo_5jIdIZeCwOMiTh9PTJJsh4VrF26rc/edit?usp=sharing
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In "Mothernoia", a daughter measures the distance between what her mother wants her to be and who she sees herself as.
diacritics.org/2026/03/moth...
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Mothernoia - diaCRITICS
I am haunted by the quiet suspicion that the woman before me is devising my murder. At the moment, we’ve resorted to a game of silence. But she is cunning, calculated, waiting with the prowess of a sn...
https://diacritics.org/2026/03/mothernoia/
23 days ago
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The Offing
about 1 month ago
We are deeply saddened to announce the passing of poet Theo LeGro. To honor their work and writing we are highlighting their poem ‘All There Is.’
theoffingmag.com/poetry/kundi...
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Ngọc Đại and the Vietnamese Avant-garde
diacritics.org/2026/03/a-br...
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A Broker in Madness - diaCRITICS
In order to find a new musical language and new forms for songs, I had to deny the official environment of the Vietnamese Government. My goals are: Break the prejudices about musical aesthetic; Mock t...
https://diacritics.org/2026/03/a-broker-in-madness/
30 days ago
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"Singlish is how Singaporeans speak when not watched by the colonial other. Or sometimes, defiantly, when they are."
diacritics.org/2026/03/on-s...
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On Singlish - diaCRITICS
Simi[1] Salah[2] English? There is a particular unease to writing about Singlish in English. Not because the two are incompatible, far from it, but because to write about Singlish in the formal regist...
https://diacritics.org/2026/03/on-singlish/
about 1 month ago
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"The sun should have set when the bullet grazed by like a stray bird singing its morning song, a sharp metallic note" Read Lê Sông Văn's "I Am Not Mad," translated by Đặng Thơ Thơ.
diacritics.org/2026/02/i-am...
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I Am Not Mad - diaCRITICS
“I Am Not Mad” is a translation of the Vietnamese poem, “Tôi Không Giận” by poet Lê Sông Văn, poignantly inspired by the life of Renée Nicole Good, an award-winning poet and mother who was fatally sho...
https://diacritics.org/2026/02/i-am-not-mad/
about 2 months ago
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Read a new poem by Brandon Vu.
diacritics.org/2026/02/what...
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what was that? you’re talking too quickly - diaCRITICS
when you were youngyou were living the sameday in the refugee campuntil you found yourself carryingbaggage from saigon to california you hung on to words toprotect yourselfand i flinched every timeyou...
https://diacritics.org/2026/02/what-was-that-youre-talking-too-quickly/
about 2 months ago
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Chúc mừng năm mới! Read a new Lunar New Year poem by Võ Đức Quang.
diacritics.org/2026/02/i-ca...
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I carry you through chinatown - diaCRITICS
Alief, Houston TX I carry you through chinatownon lunar new year's eve— softly the karaoke bars dieas hostess girls fly to their nests. Andsoju buddies stumble in a line back to their sports carsexhau...
https://diacritics.org/2026/02/i-carry-you-through-chinatown/
about 2 months ago
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Read a new poem by attic moon.
diacritics.org/2026/01/poet...
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Bà Nội’s Ghost - diaCRITICS
mother and father thoughtthey escaped the whistling missilesbut found it hitched a ridea parasiteclawing out of their stomachs and into their throatsbursting through their mouthsto roar at each other ...
https://diacritics.org/2026/01/poetry-ba-nois-ghost/
2 months ago
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Lit Hub
2 months ago
Đenise Hạnh Huỳnh offers a brief history of ICE, in poems.
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Letter From Minnesota: A Brief History of ICE in Poems
The following poems were written over the last decade, up until and including ICE’s occupation of the Twin Cities. * ________________________________________________________ ________________…
https://buff.ly/l6TmuGN
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“On Healing Land, Birds Perch” investigates the afterlife of an infamous photo.
diacritics.org/2026/01/viet...
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Viet Film Fest 2025: On Healing Land, Birds Perch - diaCRITICS
During my freshman year of high school, while working on a history assignment, I came across a photograph of the self-immolation of Thích Quảng Đức, a Buddhist monk protesting South Vietnam’s regime i...
https://diacritics.org/2026/01/viet-film-fest-2025-on-healing-land-birds-perch/
2 months ago
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Vaddey Ratner
2 months ago
"I think of memory as finite. It’s personal. Once you’re gone, that memory goes with you. Myth, by contrast, lives beyond you." Today in PEN Transmissions, Vaddey Ratner on memory, narrative history, and storytelling as a means of survival.
#writing
#literature
#art
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Knowing Is a Kind of Pain: An Interview with Vaddey Ratner
Vaddey Ratner on memory, narrative history, and storytelling as a means of survival.
https://pentransmissions.com/2026/01/29/knowing-is-a-kind-of-pain-an-interview-with-vaddey-ratner/
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"I want to tell them, and all Minnesotans: hold on to each other. No turning back."
lithub.com/letter-from-...
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Letter From Minnesota: “There’s Some Good in This World…”
I bought my tickets for the theatrical re-release of The Lord of the Rings movies last year. This was before I knew that life on the weekends would be: clean your house, feed your cat, scoop litter…
https://lithub.com/letter-from-minnesota-theres-some-good-in-this-world/
2 months ago
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English PEN
2 months ago
‘I think of memory as finite. It’s personal. Once you’re gone, that memory goes with you. Myth, by contrast, lives beyond you.’ Today in
#PENTransmissions
, Vaddey Ratner on memory, narrative history, and storytelling as a means of survival.
pentransmissions.com/2026/01/29/k...
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Knowing Is a Kind of Pain: An Interview with Vaddey Ratner
Vaddey Ratner on memory, narrative history, and storytelling as a means of survival.
https://pentransmissions.com/2026/01/29/knowing-is-a-kind-of-pain-an-interview-with-vaddey-ratner/
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Read a new poem by Antoinette Luu.
diacritics.org/2026/01/poet...
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Coi Chừng - diaCRITICS
Until age seven, all the boats you knew barrelled througha technicolour sea, a Barbie swinging from the ropeor a pirate of the Caribbean with thatfantastic plastic glow, that airbrushed sea spray. The...
https://diacritics.org/2026/01/poetry-coi-chung/
3 months ago
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Vũ Đình Giang’s “Parallels” is not for the faint-hearted.
diacritics.org/2026/01/book...
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Dangerous Games - diaCRITICS
Parallels by Vũ Đình Giang (English translation by Khải Q. Nguyễn), the first Vietnamese queer novel to be translated into another language (the French translation by Yves Bouille in 2014), is not a n...
https://diacritics.org/2026/01/book-review-parallels/
3 months ago
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"Motion sickness runs on my mother’s side of the family."
diacritics.org/2025/05/moti...
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Motion Sickness - diaCRITICS
Motion sickness runs on my mother’s side of the family.
https://diacritics.org/2025/05/motion-sickness/
4 months ago
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As we take our yearly December break, a reminder that we’re open to submissions! Visit
diacritics.org/submit/
for more info.
4 months ago
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"If you don’t see yourself in literature, you don’t feel part of the community, you don’t feel part of this world."
diacritics.org/2025/09/inte...
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In Conversation with Aimee Phan - diaCRITICS
Aimee Phan's first book, We Should Never Meet, was published in 2004. A linked short story collection, the book tracks the lives of eight characters across three decades and two continents in the afte...
https://diacritics.org/2025/09/interview-aimee-phan/
4 months ago
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Two grandmothers, two sets of cultural traditions and superstitions.
diacritics.org/2025/11/batt...
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Battle Hymn of the Battleaxe Bà Nộis - diaCRITICS
Sitting up during twilight hours holding two bottles to newborn twins forces one to slow down and feel the full brunt of patience with every clock tick of the second hand. With no hands free to scroll...
https://diacritics.org/2025/11/battle-hymn-of-the-battleaxe-ba-nois/
4 months ago
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Vietnamese Czech director Dužan Duong talks with May Ngo about his film “Summer School, 2001.”
diacritics.org/2025/11/inte...
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In Conversation with Dužan Duong - diaCRITICS
Dužan Duong’s debut feature film Summer School, 2001 centres around a Vietnamese family living and working near the Czech-German border selling counterfeit goods at the market. After being sent back t...
https://diacritics.org/2025/11/interview-duzan-duong/
4 months ago
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Dương Hướng’s 1991 classic “No Man River” gets an English translation by Quan Manh Ha and Charles Waugh.
diacritics.org/2025/11/book...
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The Human Cost of War - diaCRITICS
Dương Hướng’s No Man River, an award-winning and widely read modern Vietnamese classic, masterfully explores life in rural north Vietnam during the French Indochina War, Vietnam War, and the border wa...
https://diacritics.org/2025/11/book-review-no-man-river/
5 months ago
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Through conversations, Diane Fox presents the human cost of chemical warfare.
diacritics.org/2025/10/book...
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https://diacritics.org/2025/10/book-review-living-with-agent-orange/
5 months ago
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A tale of southern inheritances.
diacritics.org/2025/11/from...
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From South Vietnam to the Bible Belt - diaCRITICS
My childhood home in Texas sits on a street off a major road lined with eight Protestant Christian churches. I know this because I used to count them on the way home from school, wondering as a ten-ye...
https://diacritics.org/2025/11/from-south-vietnam-to-the-bible-belt/
5 months ago
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Kira Josefsson
5 months ago
So nice to see this long review of Quynh Tran's brilliant Shade and Breeze, which was published in my translation last year from Lolli Editions and is still waiting for a US publisher. Thank you
@diacritics-dvan.bsky.social
!
diacritics.org/2025/10/book...
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A Vietnamese Finnish Childhood - diaCRITICS
Shade and Breeze is the debut work of Quynh Tran, a writer and graduate of the prestigious Biskops-Arnös Writers' School in Sweden. The novel is a collection of vignettes centering on a young Vietname...
https://diacritics.org/2025/10/book-review-shade-and
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Quynh Tran’s debut novel opens a rare window into the diasporic Vietnamese experience in Finland.
diacritics.org/2025/10/book...
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A Vietnamese Finnish Childhood - diaCRITICS
Shade and Breeze is the debut work of Quynh Tran, a writer and graduate of the prestigious Biskops-Arnös Writers' School in Sweden. The novel is a collection of vignettes centering on a young Vietname...
https://diacritics.org/2025/10/book-review-shade-and-breeze/
5 months ago
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Dương Diệu Linh’s film is a visual project grounded in northern Vietnamese proverbs and Southeast Asian folklore.
diacritics.org/2025/10/viet...
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Viet Film Fest 2025: Don’t Cry, Butterfly - diaCRITICS
Don’t Cry, Butterfly (Mưa trên cánh bướm) is the debut feature film of Vietnamese director Dương Diệu Linh. Her innovative film, where family drama meets horror meets comedy, has enchanted its audienc...
https://diacritics.org/2025/10/viet-film-fest-2025-dont-cry-butterfly/
6 months ago
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The phenomenon of Việt Kiều returning is nothing new, but what feels different now, however, is the scale, the facile journey, and the dramatic material changes within Vietnam since the early 2000s, writes Vinh Phu Pham.
diacritics.org/2025/10/dear...
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Dear, Fellow Việt Kiều - diaCRITICS
I recently traveled to Cát Tiên National Park with my partner, an evolutionary biologist, in search of what Vietnam’s natural beauty still had to offer. This park, one of the largest tropical forests ...
https://diacritics.org/2025/10/dear-fellow-viet-kieu/
6 months ago
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This year, Viet Film Fest featured eleven short film sets. diaCRITICS contributing writer Cathy Duong highlights a number of short films across these brilliantly curated sets.
diacritics.org/2025/10/viet...
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Viet Film Fest 2025: Select Shorts - diaCRITICS
This year, Viet Film Fest featured eleven short film sets spanning themes from “Phim Femme” that expands Vietnamese femininity with queer narratives, to “Ethe(real)” where supernatural forces and spec...
https://diacritics.org/2025/10/viet-film-fest-2025-select-shorts/
6 months ago
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“If you don’t see yourself in literature, you don’t feel part of the community, you don’t feel part of this world.”
@aimeephan.bsky.social
chats with Melina Kritikopoulos about her new YA novel, “The Lost Queen.”
diacritics.org/2025/09/inte...
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In Conversation with Aimee Phan - diaCRITICS
Aimee Phan's first book, We Should Never Meet, was published in 2004. A linked short story collection, the book tracks the lives of eight characters across three decades and two continents in the afte...
https://diacritics.org/2025/09/interview-aimee-phan/
6 months ago
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Tin House
6 months ago
There's still time to apply to the 2026 Tin House Winter Online Workshop! Applications close today, October 6th. Don't miss out on your chance to expand your writing community and level up your craft at this fully remote experience! Apply here:
tinhouseworkshop.submittable.com/submit/17761...
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Electric Literature
6 months ago
Souvankham Thammavongsa and Apoorva Bradshaw-Mittal discuss her forthcoming novel “Pick a Color,” the art of absence, making what is real fiction, and keeping the reader wanting for more.
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https://buff.ly/oGUIkxE
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Eric Nguyen
6 months ago
@knguyen.bsky.social
on
@thedailyshow.com
!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Dsp...
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Kevin Nguyen - “Mỹ Documents: A Novel” | The Daily Show
YouTube video by The Daily Show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DspFLUTmXw
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Read a new poem by Thái Hà, with art by Lien Truong.
diacritics.org/2025/09/poet...
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Sugar Hunger - diaCRITICS
After Jihyun Yun’s “War Soup” and a recipe for sponge cake, a poem for Lien Truong’s cake paintings *** Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit, butter and line the base of two cake tins with bakin...
https://diacritics.org/2025/09/poetry-sugar-hunger/
7 months ago
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New on diaCRITICS: a short story by Đặng Thơ Thơ, translated by the author and Thuy Dinh.
diacritics.org/2025/09/fict...
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Opening the Future - diaCRITICS
Translated by Đặng Thơ Thơ and Thuy Dinh, from the short story “Mở Tương Lai” by Đặng Thơ Thơ. It is well-known among Vietnamese writers of the diaspora that Đặng Thơ Thơ comes from an illustrious yet...
https://diacritics.org/2025/09/fiction-opening-the-future/
7 months ago
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Vietnamese Amerasians face challenges both in Vietnam and in the diaspora. Amerasians Without Borders founder Jimmy Miller wants to help.
diacritics.org/2025/09/viet...
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Vietnamese Amerasians Today - diaCRITICS
During the Vietnam War, thousands of Vietnamese Amerasian children were born. Vietnamese Amerasians, the children of American fathers and Vietnamese mothers, encompassed a wide array of ethnicities. T...
https://diacritics.org/2025/09/vietnamese-amerasians-today-jimmy-miller/
7 months ago
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Ocean Vuong’s sophomore novel is a heart-aching story of working class grit and comradery in the face of exploitation, violence, and neglect.
diacritics.org/2025/09/book...
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Resisting Bleak Realities - diaCRITICS
“If you must know anything, know that the hardest task is to live only once.” — Ocean Vuong, from “Immigrant Haibun” The line from “Immigrant Haibun” captures the tragedy of reckoning with survivor’s ...
https://diacritics.org/2025/09/book-review-the-emperor-of-gladness/
7 months ago
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After a summer break, diaCRITICS is back! And we’re proud to introduce you to our new website:
www.diacritics.org
.
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7 months ago
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Prairie Schooner
8 months ago
To mark the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, we're sharing
@emtran.bsky.social
's essay "Miss Saigon," originally published in our Spring 2017 issue. Read the full essay along with E.M. Tran's reflection on our blog:
prairieschooner.unl.edu/digital-scho...
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Malarkey
8 months ago
Vi got her copies already and is signing 100 of them as we speak.
malarkeybooks.com/store/myarde...
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My Ardent Love for the Pencil, a poetry collection by Vi Khi Nao — Malarkey
September 2025 My Ardent Love for the Pencil moves like a sloth in silk: slowly, precisely, gorgeously. What is it to exist in such a way that life, love, and literature are linked so tightly...
https://malarkeybooks.com/store/myardentloveforthepencil
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The 3rd Thing
8 months ago
Now available to preorder! Dao Strom’s TENDER REVOLUTIONS/YELLOW SONGS 💛✨ 4 books & an LP in whatever combination your heart desires.
the3rdthing.press/product/tend...
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Tender Revolutions / Yellow Songs – The 3rd Thing
https://the3rdthing.press/product/tender-revolutions-yellow-songs/?mc_cid=928483f7ae&mc_eid=a43100c9d7
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An Uong
8 months ago
Is this… my first Bluesky post?? Absolutely honored to have an essay out now with
@aaww-nyc.bsky.social
!! Thank you to the team for giving this piece a home
aaww.org/how-to-cook-...
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How to Cook for a Mom Who Can No Longer Cook
My mom and I share a common language in food. Even at the peak of our most destructive and explosive fights, we would pause to eat together.
https://aaww.org/how-to-cook-for-a-mom-who-can-no-longer-cook/
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Lit Hub
9 months ago
@nguyenterry.bsky.social
explores faith, desire, and the literary landscape of conversion experiences.
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Searching For Divine Love: On the Literary Landscape of Conversion Experiences
Last year, on an unseasonably warm November day, I went to mass. The idea came to me one afternoon, a random stranger knocking on the mind’s door. Not dangerous or unwelcome, but certainly unexpect…
https://buff.ly/mkw99An
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Thao Votang
9 months ago
Today is LINH LY's one year anniversary 💗 Give my book a read (or listen, with the super sale below!) ~~~
bookshop.org/p/books/linh...
add a skeleton here at some point
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Kate McKean
9 months ago
I spy
@trungles.com
!
add a skeleton here at some point
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Over at
@newenglandreview.bsky.social
,
@cathylinhche.bsky.social
talks about counter-narratives, the ethics of documentary authority, and her book "Becoming Ghost."
nereview.com/cathy-linh-c...
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Cathy Linh Che – New England Review
https://nereview.com/cathy-linh-che/
9 months ago
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Words Without Borders & WWB Campus
9 months ago
Today’s reading: this enigmatic poem in Da Màu Magazine, which was translated by WWB contributor Đặng Thơ Thơ (it’s also available in Đỗ Lê Anhdao’s original Vietnamese text). Read it on their site:
damau.org/103132/jing
(1)
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| JIngTạp Chí Da Màu - Văn chương không biên giới | Thúc đẩy sự cảm thông và chấp nhận những dị biệt bắt nguồn từ văn hóa, ngôn ngữ, phái tính, màu da, tín ngưỡng, và chính kiến qua các hình thái văn học nghệ thuật ♦ Promoting the awareness and acceptance of cultural, language, gender, religious and political differences through literary and artistic expressions
Jing không thể bỏ cái bụng bầu bên trong có đứa bé,
https://damau.org/103132/jing
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Electric Literature
9 months ago
Steven Duong on writing poetry that captures the intimate experience of a person being tattooed.
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Obsessions Create Ripple Effects in "At the End of the World There Is a Pond" - Electric Literature
Steven Duong discusses the impact of displacement, addiction, and his tattoo practice on his debut collection of poetry
https://buff.ly/SfDntWB
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