The Visiting Artists Program resource guides contain upcoming speakers' biographies, articles, video and audio content, related publications in the Flaxman Library, and additional online resources. These guides may be used in the classroom in preparation for the event, research, or post-lecture discussion.
Ocean Vuong: Tuesday, October 6, 6:30 - 7:30 p.m. CT
Click here to join via Zoom, Passcode: SAICVAP (closed captions available)
Join us live for a virtual book reading by writer Ocean Vuong followed by an audience Q&A.
Ocean Vuong is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous from Penguin Press (2019), forthcoming in 30 languages worldwide. A recipient of a 2019 MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship, he is also the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds, a New York Times Top 10 Book of 2016 and winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize; Whiting Award; Thom Gunn Award; and the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. A Ruth Lilly Fellow from the Poetry Foundation, his honors include fellowships from the Lannan Foundation; Civitella Ranieri Foundation; The Elizabeth George Foundation; the Academy of American Poets; and the Pushcart Prize.
Vuong's writings have been featured in The Atlantic; Granta; Harpers; The Nation; New Republic; The New Yorker; the New York Times; The Village Voice; and American Poetry Review, which awarded him the Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize for Younger Poets. Selected by Foreign Policy magazine as a 2016 100 Leading Global Thinkers, alongside Hillary Clinton, Ban Ki-Moon, and Angela Merkel, Vuong was also named by BuzzFeed Books as one of “32 Essential Asian-American Writers” and has been profiled on NPR’s All Things Considered, PBS’s NewsHour, Teen Vogue, Interview, Poets & Writers, and The New Yorker.
Born in Saigon, Vietnam, he lives in Northampton, Massachusetts where he serves as an associate professor in the MFA Program for Poets and Writers at UMass-Amherst.
Presented in partnership with SAIC’s Writing Program.
Portrait credit: Ocean Vuong. Photo by Peter Bienkowski
Ocean Vuong's Website
‘You’ll have to die to get these texts’: Ocean Vuong’s next manuscript to be unveiled in 2114
Sian Cain | The Guardian | August 19, 2020
Ocean Vuong Found Artistic Inspiration in a Baptist Church
Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz | The Cut | July 1, 2020
Ocean Vuong shares stories behind novel 'On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous’*
Dorany Pineda | Los Angeles Times | January 29, 2020
*This is a library resource that requires ARTIC login
When everything changed: Novelist Ocean Vuong reflects on a year of intense highs and lows*
Martin Wolk | Los Angeles Times | January 8, 2020
*This is a library resource that requires ARTIC login
Going Home with Ocean Vuong
Kat Chow | The Atlantic | June 4, 2019
Ocean Vuong’s Life Sentences
Jia Tolentino | The New Yorker | June 3, 2019
Ocean Vuong Makes His Fiction Debut, in the Form of a Letter*
Justin Torres | The New York Times | June 3, 2019
*This is a library resource that requires ARTIC login
Eavesdropping on Ocean Vuong’s New Book*
Kevin Nguyen | The New York Times | May 25, 2019
*This is a library resource that requires ARTIC login
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by 
Night Sky with Exit Wounds by 2019 MacArthur Fellow: Ocean Vuong, Poet and Fiction Writer
Ocean Vuong’s profile in the MacArthur Fellows Program Class of 2019.
Visiting Artists Program Lecture Recordings from the Archive
SAIC Visiting Artists Program video and audio lecture recordings (1977–present.) Available with SAIC login credentials.
SAIC Digital Collections: Visiting Artists Program
SAIC Visiting Artists Program publicity archive and audio recordings (1977-98).