Spring Community Dialogue features Kao Kalia Yang, award-winning Hmong writer, Feb. 16

The Multicultural Student Services' Spring Community Dialogue will feature Hmong writer, teacher, community activist and entrepreneur Kao Kalia Yang on Tuesday, Feb. 16.

The lecture, from 6 to 8 p.m. in Room 100, McNeely Hall, is free and open to the public. A book signing will follow.

Yang is the 2008 recipient of the Spirit of Carleton College Award, and her book The Latehomecomer won two 2009 Minnesota Book Awards – for memoir/creative nonfiction as well as the Reader's Choice Award. The Latehomecomer is the first book to win two Minnesota Book Awards.

Yang has taught creative nonfiction writing workshops to professionals, including professors from Rutgers University and New York University. She also has taught in St. Paul at Concordia University and St. Catherine University. Yang co-founded Words Wanted, one of the first professional Hmong writing services in the United States, and currently visits organizations and institutions across the country to talk about writing.

The Spring Community Dialogue continues discussion from the 2010 Multicultural Student Services' J-Term Book Club, which featured The Latehomecomer, Yang’s memoir.