Author Bich Minh Nguyen to Visit College of DuPage March 11

Acclaimed author Bich Minh Nguyen will read and discuss her work at College of DuPage on Monday, March 11, at 7 p.m. in the Health and Science Center, Room 1234, on the College's main campus, 425 Fawell Blvd., Glen Ellyn.

This free event, co-sponsored by the Creative Writing committee and the Asian Studies committee, is part of College of DuPage's “Writer's Read” series, which brings authors to COD's campus for readings and discussions.

Nguyen's memoir Stealing Buddha's Dinner, released in 2007, received the PEN/Jerard Award from the PEN American Center and was a Chicago Tribune Best Book of 2007, a Kiriyama Prize Notable Book, and an Asian American Literature Award finalist. Her novel

Short Girls was released in 2009 and won an American Book Award in fiction and named a Best Book of the Year by Library Journal. Nguyen's work has also appeared in publications such as The New York Times, Gourmet Magazine and Dream Me Home Safely: Writers on Growing up in America.

Her next novel, Little Gray House in the West, will be published in 2014.

Born Vietnam in 1974, Nguyen was eight months old when her family fled the fall of Saigon. The family eventually settled in Grand Rapids, Michn. Nguyen went on to earn an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Michigan. She currently lives in Chicago and West Lafeyette, Ind., with her husband, novelist Porter Shreve, and teaches creative nonfiction,

fiction and Asian American Literature at Purdue University. Together, Nguyen and Shreve have co-edited the anthologies 30/30: Thirty American Stories from the Last Thirty Years, Contemporary Creative Fiction: I & Eye and The Contemporary American Short Story.

For the last 15 years the Writers Read series has brought dozens of nationally acclaimed writers to College of DuPage, including Stuart Dybek, Luis Urrea, Scott Russell Sanders and Joy Harjo. According to English professor Tom Montgomery Fate, many College of DuPage faculty members teach the work of these visiting writers, often inspiring a deeper appreciation of the authors, their process and resulting work.

“In recent years I've begun to tape formal interviews in our Multimedia Services studios with the visiting writers,” said Fate. “I speak candidly with them about their work and about their approaches to writing. These interviews are then used as a resource for creative writing courses both online and in the classroom. In this way, the visiting writers have an enduring impact on our students and our teaching long after they leave.”

This event is free and open to the public. For more information about the Writers Read series, call (630) 942-3291 or email montgome@cod.edu. Click the following links to read more about “Short Girls” and “Stealing Buddha's Dinner.”