Contact Information
St. Paul, MN
Phone: 763-219-3401
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.kaokaliayang.com
Book Category: Children’s fiction, Nonfiction, Picture Books, Young adult
Age Group: K-12
Books
A Map Into the World (Picture Book). Minneapolis: Carolrhoda Books, 2019.
What God is Honored Here?: Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss By and For Native Women and Women of Color (Nonfiction Collection). Minneapolis: University of MN Press, 2019.
The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father (Nonfiction/Memoir). New York: Metropolitan Books, 2016.
The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir (Nonfiction/Memoir). Minneapolis: Coffee House Press, 2008.
Forthcoming Books
• The Shared Room (Picture Book). Minneapolis: University of MN Press, Spring of 2020
• Somewhere in the Unknown World (Nonfiction/Memoir). New York: Metropolitan Books, spring 2019
• The Most Beautiful Thing (Picture Book). Minneapolis: Carolrhodo Books, Fall of 2020
Highlights
Kao Kalia Yang is a Hmong-American writer. She is the author of The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir (Coffee House Press, 2008), winner of the 2009 Minnesota Book Awards in Creative Nonfiction/Memoir and Readers’ Choice, and a finalist for the PEN USA Award in Creative Nonfiction and the Asian Literary Award in Nonfiction. Her second book, The Song Poet (Metropolitan Books, 2016) won the 2016 Minnesota Book Award in Creative Nonfiction Memoir. It was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Chautauqua Prize, a PEN USA Award in Nonfiction and the Dayton’s Literary Peace Prize. Her debut children’s book, A Map Into the World, and a collection titled What God is Honored Here?: An Anthology on Miscarriage and Infant Loss By and For Native Women and Women of Color are newly published. Yang is also a teacher and a public speaker.
Awards
The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father
Dayton’s Literary Peace Prize Finalist, 2017
PEN USA Literary Award in Nonfiction Finalist, 2017
National Book Critics Circle in Biography Finalist, 2017
Midwest Book Award Finalist, 2017
The Chautauqua Prize Finalist, 2017
Minnesota Book Award Winner in Creative Nonfiction/Memoir, 2017
Commissioned for a children’s opera for the spring 2021 season by the Minnesota Opera
Selected as a best book of 2016 by The Boston Globe, The Minneapolis Star Tribune & St. Paul Pioneer Press
The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir
National Endowment for the Arts Big Read Title, 2015
Jeannette Fair Memorial Award for Distinguished Writing, 2012
PEN USA Literary Award for Nonfiction Finalist, 2010
Minnesota Book Award Winner in Creative Nonfiction/Memoir, 2009
Minnesota Readers’ Choice Award Winner, 2009
Skipping Stones Honor Award Winner, 2009
Asian American Literary Award Finalist, 2009
Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award Winner, 2008
Presentations
As a refugee and naturalized American, as a writer who first met English as a second language and a writer who works across genres for audiences of different ages, Kao Kalia Yang speaks to a diversity of experiences from a holistic and essential perspective. As the most widely published Hmong-American writer in the country, Yang is a pioneer for her people in literary America. Her presentations cover a wide array of topics and they speak profoundly to diverse organizations, institutions, and orientations.
Fees
Please contact Kevin Mills of the Tuesday Agency with your particular needs and ideas for a presentation by Ms. Yang. Kevin can be reached at [email protected].