About

Moderated by UC San Diego Literature Professor Lily Hoàng

Join the author of Time is a Mother for a reading and conversation about his writing process, his influences, and the themes behind his New York Times-bestselling, deeply intimate second poetry collection.

About Ocean Vuong

Ocean Vuong is the author of the New York Times bestselling poetry collection, Time is a Mother (Penguin Press 2022), and the New York Times bestselling novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (Penguin Press 2019), which has been translated into 37 languages.  A recipient of a 2019 MacArthur “Genius” Grant, he is also the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection, Night Sky with Exit Wounds, a New York Times Top 10 Book of 2016, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Whiting Award, the Thom Gunn Award, and the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. A Ruth Lilly fellow from the Poetry Foundation, his honors include fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, The Elizabeth George Foundation, The Academy of American Poets, and the Pushcart Prize.

Born in Saigon, Vietnam and raised in Hartford, Connecticut in a working class family of nail salon and factory laborers, he was educated at nearby Manchester Community College before transferring to Pace University to study International Marketing. Without completing his first term, he dropped out of Business school and enrolled at Brooklyn College, where he graduated with a B.A. in Nineteenth Century American Literature. He subsequently received his M.F.A. in Poetry from New York University. 

He currently lives in Northampton, Massachusetts and serves as a tenured Professor in the Creative Writing M.F.A. Program at New York University.