Mong Lan

Poet, novelist, essayist, painter, photographer, multi-instrumentalist, composer, singer, dancer, and educator, Mộng-Lan left her native Vietnam on the last day of the evacuation of Saigon. Former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University,  Fulbright Fellow, she received her Master of Fine Arts from the Univ of Arizona. Winner of a Pushcart Prize, the Juniper Prize, the Great Lakes Colleges Association’s New Writers Awards for Poetry, she is the author of seven books and three chapbooks. Her most recent full-length collection is Dusk Aflame: poems & art, 2018, and Tone of Water in a Half-Filled Glass, chapbook. Other books include Song of the Cicadas; Why is the Edge Always Windy?, Tango, Tangoing: Poems & Art; Tango, Tangueando: Poemas & Dibujos (the bilingual Spanish-English edition); Love Poem to Tofu & Other Poems (poetry & calligraphic art, chapbook); Love Poem to Ginger & Other Poems: poetry & paintings (chapbook); Force of the Heart: Tango, Art; and One Thousand Minds Brimming: poems & art. Mong-Lan’s poetry has been nationally and internationally anthologized to include being in Best American Poetry; The Pushcart Book of Poetry: Best Poems from 30 Years of the Pushcart Prize; and has appeared in such journals as North American Review, Kenyon Review and The Iowa Review. Mong-Lan plays the piano and guitar, sings in six languages, and also writes songs. Her ten albums of jazz piano and tangos also showcase her poetry. As a visual artist, Mong-Lan has had her paintings and photographs exhibited in museums such as the Dallas Museum of Art and galleries in the U.S., and in public exhibitions in Tokyo, Seoul, Bangkok, Bali and Buenos Aires. Mong-Lan as a dancer has studied ballet, jazz and flamenco, and has specialized as an Argentine tango dancer, performer, and teacher, having over twenty years of tango dance experience, in Buenos Aires, San Francisco, New York City, Tokyo, Bangkok, Hanoi, and elsewhere. Visit: https://www.monglan.com