Learn more about the wonderful things DVAN is doing to help save the universe. Join us on facebook!

QUANG BAO is the former executive director of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, dedicated to the creation, development, publication, and dissemination of Asian American literature. His work has appeared in literary journals, newspapers and magazines, including the Three Penny Review, the Boston Globe, and the New York Times. He is the co-editor of Take Out: Queer Writing from Asian Pacific America.

LY LAN DILL is an American national born in Vietnam and living in Paris. A translator for nearly 15 years, she earned her undergraduate degree is in French Literature (Northwestern) and did her graduate studies in Vietnamese diaspora literature (Charles V, Paris 8) . Her research interest is post-colonialism in South-East Asia..

YSA LE is executive director of the Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association (VAALA). She has produced various art events such as “Dang Thai Son Piano Recital,” “Little Saigon Book Fair,” “F.O.B.: A Multi-Art Show,”, "F.O.B. II: Art Speaks," “Cinema Symposium," Theatre for Youth, smART Program, etc. Ysa co-founded the bienniel Vietnamese International Film Festival (ViFF) and serves as the co-director for ViFF in 2005, 2007, and 2009. She currently hosts Vong Chan Troi Van Hoc Nghe Thuat (The Art Horizon), a weekly program on VNCR 106.3 FM, reporting on art events in the Vietnamese American community.

NGUYEN-VO THU-HUONG is A fiction writer and associate professor in Asian Languages and Cultures, and Asian American Studies at UCLA.  Her research deals with governance and the neoliberal global economy, and currently focuses on spectral modes of political and literary representation by Vietnamese nationals and diasporics.  Her most recent publications include: The Ironies of Freedom: Sex, Culture, and Neoliberal Governance in Vietnam (University of Washington Press, 2008); and “History Interrupted: Life after Material Death in South Vietnamese and Diasporic Fiction,” Journal of Vietnamese Studies, 3:1 (2008): 1-35.  Her fiction in Vietnamese under nguyễn hương has appeared in Vietnamese-language literary journals and anthologies.

KHANH MAI received his B.A. in Sociology from the University of Washington and Masters Degree in Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University. His research focus was in Buddhism and Asian American Literature. He currently divides his time with volunteering, work, and family.

QUANG X. PHAM is a successful entrepreneur, motivational speaker, decorated Marine, and acclaimed author of A Sense of Duty: My Father, My American Journey (Random House, 2005). Quang and his book have been featured on The NBC Nightly News, MSNBC, CNN Business Hour, PBS, NPR, and in Forbes, The New York Times and other ethnic and mainstream publications. He is the founder and president of Lathian Health, a provider of pharmaceutical marketing services and sales solutions. He serves on the boards of Lathian, Monarch Healthcare Staffing, Think Together (nonprofit), and the Marines' Memorial Association. Quang has received numerous business, civic, and military awards. Currently, he lives in California with his wife and daughter and also spends much time on the East Coast.

TRUONG TRAN is a poet and visual artist. His publications include, The Book of Perceptions (Kearny Street Workshop 1999, finalist in The Kiriyama Book Prize), Placing The Accents (Apogee Press 1999, finalist in the Western States Book Prize for Poetry), dust and conscience (Apogee Press 2000, awarded the San Francisco Poetry Center Book Prize), within the margin (Apogee Press 2004) and Four Letter Words (Apogee Press 2008). He is the recipient of three San Francisco Arts Commission’s Individual Artist Grants (two in poetry and one in visual arts), An Arts Council of Silicon Valley Grant, a Califoria Arts Council Grant, a Creative Work Fund Grant and a Fund For Poetry Grant. Truong lives in San Francisco where he works as an artist and teaches poetry at San Francisco State University and Mills College.

MONIQUE TRUONG's first novel, The Book of Salt, was a New York Times Notable Book of 2003 and the recipient of the Bard Fiction Prize, Stonewall Book Award-Barbara Gittings Literature Award, New York Public Library Young Lions Award, the Asian American Literary Award, PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award, and a PEN Robert Bingham Fellowship, among other honors. Truong is a co-editor of the anthology Watermark: Vietnamese American Poetry and Prose (1998). She received her B.A. in Literature from Yale University and her J.D. from Columbia University School of Law. She was most recently a 2007-08 Hodder Fellow at Princeton University. Her second novel, Bitter in the Mouth, is forthcoming in Fall 2010 from Random House.

LINDA TRINH VO is an Associate Professor in the Department of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Irvine. She received a Ph.D. in Sociology from UC San Diego and is the author of, Mobilizing an Asian American Community, and co-editor of Contemporary Asian American Communities: Intersection and Divergences; Asian American Women: The “Frontiers” Reader; and Labor Versus Empire: Race, Gender, and Migration. She is a board member of the Southeast Asian Archive (UCI); the Orange County Asian and Pacific Islander Community Alliance; the Vietnamese International Film Festival; and Project MotiVATe, a mentoring program for Vietnamese Americans. 

MINH TSAI is a foodie, and founder of Hodo Soy Beanery, an artisanal tofu company in the Bay Area. Prior to starting Hodo, Minh spent 10 years in strategic consulting and investment banking working with fortune 500 companies. Minh graduated from Columbia with a BA in Asian Studies and Masters in Economic Development. Beside his passion for food, Minh enjoys writing, wines and friendships.

BINH DANH received his MFA from Stanford University in 2004 and has emerged as an artist of national importance with work that investigates his Vietnamese/Cambodian heritage and our collective memory of war, both in Viet Nam and Cambodia--work that, in his own words, deals with "mortality, memory, history, landscape, justice, evidence, and spirituality." He received the 2010 Eureka Fellowship from the Fleishhacker Foundation and is represented by Haines Gallery in San Francisco, CA and Lisa Sette Gallery in Scottsdale, AZ. (Binh Danh's website)



Advisory committee member and poet Truong Tran reads from his work at DVAN's "Vietnamese Poets of the Diaspora" on November 8, 2008. Photo courtesy of Thai Anh Nguyen-Khoa.