Diana Khoi Nguyen | Writing

Diana’s Affiliations: Asian Studies Center, CAAPP, Poets and Writers Roundtable at Pitt, Vietnamese Student Association

Poet and multimedia artist Diana Khoi Nguyen is the author of Ghost Of (Omnidawn Publishing, 2018), the chapbook the chaplet Unless (Belladonna*, 2019), and digital chapbook Homecoming (Cordite Poetry Review, 2019). Ghost Of was selected by Terrance Hayes for the Omnidawn Open Contest, and was a finalist for the National Book Award and L.A. Times Book Prize. It received the 2019 Kate Tufts Discovery Award and Colorado Book Award. Her poetry and prose have appeared widely in magazines and journals such as Poetry, American Poetry Review, and PEN America, to name a few.

Born and raised in California, where she earned a BA in English and Communication Studies from UCLA, followed by an MFA from Columbia University and a PhD from the University of Denver. In addition to teaching during her graduate studies, she has taught creative writing in academic and literary community settings such as the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, University of Washington at Bothell, Randolph College Low-Residency MFA, Lighthouse Writers Workshop, Hugo House, Tin House, Juniper Summer Writing Institute, Naropa’s Summer Writing Program, and 92Y to name a few.

A Kundiman fellow, Nguyen’s other honors include a recent 2021 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as awards from the 92Y “Discovery” / Boston Review Poetry Contest, Key West Literary Seminars, and Academy of American Poets. She has held scholarships and fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. In spring 2022, she was the inaugural Asian American artist-in-residence in the Department of American Studies at Brown University, where she curated the community exhibit at the Providence Public Library, “Would That: Expressions of Possibility in Asian America and Diasporas.”

Currently, she collaborates with the Vietnamese womxn and non-binary, gender nonconforming collective, She Who Has No Master(s), and where she also mentors SE Asian literary artists as part of a new Diasporic Vietnamese Artist Network mentorship program.

Links

Ghost of

Poem and Interview (with video)

Interview

Essay  

Teaching and Writing 

In the classroom, I always try to go there—beyond any boundaries which may comprise (and confine) both in the classroom and in creating writing tradition. Formal boundaries often keep students and educators from talking about personal matters or topics considered gross, taboo, or uncomfortable. I seek to cultivate a creative space in the classroom in which participants may engage in exploration of underrepresented and at times deeply emotional themes through open, honest, and respectful dialogues. Because I teach creative writing, it is crucial that students delve into difficult topics, to take them apart, try to sympathize, empathize, and understand how these issues operate and affect oneself and others—because whether they are writing poems, stories, or personal essays, they are all world-makers of visual and linguistic means, and it is imperative that these worlds are dynamic, that they bear verisimilitude to the conditions of consciousness and existence: emotion, feeling, impulse, uncertainty, discovery, to name a few.

But to anchor the writer through this at times precarious process, I support and advocate for risk-taking and play, but from a play of security and safety first.