Between Images and WordsAs this year's keynote speaker, author Kao Kalia Yang will read from and explore how the form of the picture book has expanded meaning within her work. Yang will discuss how the contributions of her illustrators have shifted and deepened her stories, how the conversation between both opens up possibilities for readers of all ages, and what lives in between images and words: the breadth of the emotional landscape.
Kao Kalia Yang is a Hmong American teacher, speaker, and writer. She is the award-winning author of the memoirs,
The Latehomecomer,
The Song Poet,
Somewhere in the Unknown World, and
Where Rivers Part. Yang co-edited the groundbreaking book,
What God is Honored Here?: Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss By and For Native Women and Women of Color. She is a librettist for
The Song Poet Opera (commissioned by Minnesota Opera). Her children’s books,
A Map Into the World,
The Most Beautiful Thing,
The Shared Room,
Yang Warriors,
From the Tops of the Trees,
The Rock in My Throat, and
Caged center Hmong children and families who live in our world, who dream, hurt, and hope in it. Yang’s work has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the American Library Association, and has garnered four Minnesota Book Awards. She was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Carleton College. Yang is McKnight, Soros, and Guggenheim fellow. You can learn more about Kao Kalia Yang and her work on
her website.
This event is sponsored by JSTOR (ITHAKA)
