Summary of Biography:      

Mong-Lan, poet, writer, painter, photographer, and Argentine tango dancer, left her native Vietnam on the last day of the evacuation of Saigon in 1975.  Mong-Lan's first book of poems, Song of the Cicadas, won the 2000 Juniper Prize, the 2002 Great Lakes Colleges Association's New Writers Awards for Poetry and was a finalist for the Poetry Society of America's Norma Farber First Book Award.  Her other books of poetry include Why is the Edge Always Windy?; Love Poem to Tofu and Other Poems and Tango, Tangoing: Poems & Art .  She received her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Arizona, was the recipient of a Wallace E. Stegner Fellowship in poetry for two years at Stanford University, and was a Fulbright Fellow in Vietnam. Her poetry has been frequently anthologized to include in Best American Poetry, The Pushcart Book of Poetry: Best Poems from 30 Years of the Pushcart Prize; Asian American Poetry —The Next Generation; Contemporary Voices from the Eastern World: an Anthology of Poems; Force Majeure (Indonesia); Black Dog, Black Night: Contemporary Vietnamese Poetry; Jungle Crows: a Tokyo Expatriate anthology and has appeared in leading American literary journals.  She has read her poetry, lectured and/or given academic presentations in Argentina, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Switzerland, United States, Thailand and Vietnam. Her paintings and photographs have been exhibited for one year at the Capitol House in Washington D.C., in galleries in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, for six months at the Dallas Museum of Art, in public exhibitions in Tokyo, Bali, Bangkok, Buenos Aires and Seoul. She has taught at the University of Arizona, Stanford University and the University of Maryland in Tokyo.

Mong-Lan travels frequently most often between Southeast Asia, United States and Argentina. She is available to teach, present workshops, give lectures and readings. Contact .

Extended Biography 

Born in Saigon, Vietnam, poet, writer, painter, photographer, and Argentine tango dancer, Mong-Lan left her native country on the last day of the evacuation of Saigon in 1975.  After one month in Guam and gypsy-like periods ranging from weeks to years in numerous cities and states in the American Midwest and Southwest, she and her family settled in Houston, Texas.   While still in high school, she received scholarships for three years to attend the Glassell School of Art in Houston.  Subsequently, her paintings and photographs have been exhibited for one year at the Capitol House in Washington D.C., in galleries in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, for six months at the Dallas Museum of Art, in public exhibitions in Tokyo, Bali, Bangkok and Seoul.

Mong-Lan took her Master of Fine Arts in poetry from the University of Arizona in Tucson, where she received the Graduate School Fellowship and the Dean's Master of Fine Arts Fellowship.  Mong-Lan was a guest writer in The Chateau de Lavigny International Writer's Residency in Switzerland, near Lausanne.  The recipient of a Wallace E. Stegner Fellowship in poetry for two years at Stanford University, she was a Fulbright Fellow in Vietnam shortly afterwards.  She has taught English as a second language in San Francisco and Portland, Oregon, and has taught writing, poetry and literature at the University of Arizona, Stanford University, and the University of Maryland University College. She has served as poetry and art editor for Sonora Review and Constellation, UMUC's literary magazine.  

Mong-Lan's first book of poems, Song of the Cicadas, won the 2000 Juniper Prize and was published by the University of Massachusetts Press in 2001.   It also won the 2002 Great Lakes Colleges Association's New Writers Awards for Poetry and was a finalist for the Poetry Society of America's Norma Farber First Book Award.  Her other books of poetry include Why is the Edge Always Windy? (Tupelo Press, 2005), Tango, Tangoing: Poems & Art and Love Poem to Tofu and Other Poems (poetry & calligraphic art) .  Her poems have been anthologized in Best American Poetry; The Pushcart Prize Anthology;  The Pushcart Book of Poetry: Best Poems from 30 Years of the Pushcart Prize; Contemporary Voices from the Eastern World: an Anthology of Poems (Norton); Making More Waves: New Writing by Asian American Women (Beacon Press); Watermark: Vietnamese American Poetry and Prose (Asian American Writer's Workshop); and Asian American Poetry —The Next Generation (U of Illinois Press); Force Majeure (Indonesia); Black Dog, Black Night: Contemporary Vietnamese Poetry (Milkweed Editions) ; Jungle Crows: a Tokyo Expatriate anthology; and her poems have appeared in leading American literary journals such as The Kenyon Review, North American Review, New American Writing, and The Antioch Review.  Her poems have been translated into Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Malayam, Serbian, Spanish, Tamil, and Vietnamese. 
 

In conjunction with the National Endowment for the Arts, she was the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts' inaugural Visual Artist and Poet in Residence during the month of February 2005.  An exhibition of her paintings and photographs, "The World of Mong-Lan," ran from January 30-August 28, 2005.  She gave poetry readings, gallery talks and conducted workshops on art (drawing and painting) and writing / poetry at the Dallas Museum of Arts for the general public, at the Dallas Public Library, and creatively talented middle school and high school students in Dallas area arts magnet schools. 

Mong-Lan has read/performed her poetry and presented slides of her artworks at many universities and festivals/workshops in a number of countries to include the World Poetry Festival in Heidelberg, Germany; the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Bali, Indonesia (where she won First Place in their Grand Poetry Slam); the Utan Kayu Literary Biennale in Jakarta and Borobudur, Indonesia; Lavigny, Switzerland (Chateau de Lavigny International Writers Residency); in Tokyo at Waseda University, University of Tokyo and Temple University; at U.S. Embassy-sponsored presentations in Japan (in Fukuoka at Kyushu University, in Nagoya at Aichi Prefectural University, and Sophia University in Tokyo)  and in Argentina, Buenos Aires, at the Instituto Cultural Argentino-Norteamericano  (ICANA); in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; at U.S. Consulate-(Ho Chi Minh City) sponsored lectures in Vietnam at various Vietnamese universities in HCMC and in the Mekong Delta; and in the U.S. to include:  Harvard University, Stanford University, San Francisco State University, Menlo College, Occidental College, University of Nevada, Northwest Bookfest, Virgina Festival of the Book, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Regis College, State University of New York--Purchase, at the twelve Great Lakes College's Association Colleges such as Kenyon College, DePauw University, Wabash College, and Hope College; the Asia Society in New York City, and the Poetry Society of America's Festival for New Poets, to name a few.  Her artistic schedule provides information about her professional activities. 

In addition to her writing, painting, and photography, she also is a dancer/teacher of Argentine tango.  She has also studied ballet, ballroom, flamenco and classical Spanish dance. 

Mong-Lan travels frequently most often between Southeast Asia, United States and Argentina.

She is available to teach, present workshops, give lectures and readings. Please contact her.