Andrew Lam to Speak at Vietnam War Conference in Lubbock, Texas
2025-04-12 13:30 - 15:00 (America/Chicago) | MCM Elegante Hotel & Suites, 801 Avenue Q, Lubbock, TX, 79401, United States
Red Hen author Andrew Lam will join the conference “1975: The End of the Vietnam War” hosted by the Vietnam Center & Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive and Institute for Peace & Conflict at Texas Tech University. He will speak at the panel “SVN Legacies: ARVN Soldiers and the Politics of Vietnamese Diasporic Cultural Memory ” on April 12.
During the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, the conference will focus on the year 1975. It will approach a wide range of historical events and topics by hosting presenters who examine diplomatic, military, international, regional, social, cultural, and domestic aspects of the Vietnam War.

Panel: Session 7B – SVN Legacies: ARVN Soldiers and the Politics of Vietnamese Diasporic Cultural Memory
Presentation: Lieutenant General Lâm Quang Thi
Time: Apirl 12, 1:30pm – 3pm
Location: University Room, MCM Elegante Hotel and Suites 801 Avenue Q Lubbock, TX 79401

For more details and registrations: https://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/events/2025_Conference/

Andrew Lam Book Talk at Foothill College
2025-04-24 12:00 - 13:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Foothill College, 12345 El Monte Rd, Los Altos Hills, CA, 94022, United States
Red Hen author Andrew Lam will speak at Foothill College on Thursday, April 24 as part of the college’s Art of Community & AANHPI programming. This event celebrates API Heritage Month and will be held from 12–1 PM in Room 5015 and also available via Zoom.
A prolific writer and journalist, Lam’s work explores the Vietnamese diaspora and the human experience. He is the author of several essay and story collections, including his most recent, Stories from the Edge of the Sea, published by Red Hen Press in March 2025.

Stories of Refugees Resilience: An evening with author Helen Benedict
2025-04-24 18:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | Eat Offbeat, Chelsea Market, Manhattan, NY, United States
Join us at Eat Offbeat in Chelsea Market for a powerful evening of storytelling, food, and conversation with acclaimed author Helen Benedict. Her novel, The Good Deed, explores the refugee experience through the story of Syrian and Sudanese women seeking safety in Greece, only to face new struggles in their search for justice and belonging. The book sheds light on the realities of displacement, the bonds formed between those forced from their homes, and the moral complexities of offering help.
At Eat Offbeat, we celebrate the rich culinary traditions of refugee and immigrant chefs, offering guests the opportunity to experience flavors from around the world while supporting a mission of empowerment and inclusion. What better place to host this event that brings together literature and cuisine to spark meaningful dialogue about migration, identity, and the power of community?
Your admission will include delicious appetizers and soft drinks, with the option to stay and have dinner with the author after the talk. (Dinner can be paid on site). The dinner and food will feature chef Diaa from Syria and chef Gladys from Sudan.
Eat Offbeat will be offering 20% of the proceeds of the evening to the International Refugee Assistance Project, IRAP, https://refugeerights.org.
For details and tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/stories-of-refugees-resilience-an-evening-with-author-helen-benedict-tickets-1312916662079?aff=oddtdtcreator

Andrew Lam Book Reading at Viet Museum’s April 30th Commemoration in San Jose
2025-04-27 13:00 - 15:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Issac Newton Senter Auditorium, 70 West Hedding Street, San Jose, CA, 95110, United States
Red Hen author Andrew Lam will join a powerful lineup of writers, artists, and performers at the 50th Anniversary Commemoration of the Fall of Saigon, hosted by IRCC and the Viet Museum in San Jose.
This special event reflects on tragedy of war and the triumph of courage and resilience shared by Vietnamese American community.
As award-winning Vietnamese-American writer, Andrew Lam will read his book in the event.

Literary Salon with Red Hen Press, Tia Chucha Press, and Letras Latinas
2025-05-01 17:30 - 19:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Red Hen Press, 1540 Lincoln Ave., Pasadena, CA, 91103, United States
We are pleased to invite you to a special literary salon at Red Hen Press in Pasadena on Thursday, May 1 celebrating authors from Red Hen Press, Tia Chucha Press, and the Letras Latinas initiative from the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies.
We welcome William Archila (S is for, The Gravedigger’s Archaeology), Adela Najarro (Variations in Blue), Brent Ameneyro (A Face Out of Clay), Malia Márquez (City of Smoke and Sea), Jose Hernandez Diaz (Portrait of the Artist as a Brown Man), and Luivette Resto (Living on Islands Not Found on Maps), with Francisco Aragón (After Ruben) as our wonderful emcee.
Thursday, May 1
5:30 p.m. Reception with refreshments, tamales & light bites
6:15 p.m. Program
Red Hen Press: 1540 Lincoln Ave, Pasadena, CA 91103
Please scroll down to RSVP!

Parking: Lot space is limited; street parking is plentiful

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Francisco Aragón is a Latino poet, editor, translator, and director and founder of Letras Latinas, the literary initiative at the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies. He is the author of three books of poetry, most recently After Rubén (Red Hen Press, 2020). Previous collections include Glow of Our Sweat (Scapegoat Press, 2010) and Puerta del Sol (Bilingual Press, 2005). Francisco is also the editor of the award-winning anthology The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry (University of Arizona Press, 2007). He spends the fall and spring semesters on the Notre Dame campus, where he teaches courses in Latinx poetry and creative writing.
Brent Ameneyro is a poet and music artist. He is the author of the collection A Face Out of Clay (The Center for Literary Publishing, 2024) and the chapbook Puebla (Ghost City Press, 2023). His poetry has been published in Alaska Quarterly Review, The Iowa Review, Ninth Letter, The Journal, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and elsewhere. He was the 2022-2023 Letras Latinas Poetry Coalition Fellow at the University of Notre Dame. Brent currently serves as the Poetry Editor at The Los Angeles Review.
William Archila is the author of three books of poetry including S is For (Black Lawrence Press, 2025), which won the 2023 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry. He is the author of The Art of Exile (Bilingual Review Press, 2009), which was awarded the International Latino Book Award, and The Gravedigger’s Archaeology (Letras Latinas, 2015), which received the Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize. His works have been published in Poetry Magazine, The American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review and numerous other publications. William is an associate editor at Tía Chucha Press and he lives in Los Angeles.
Jose Hernandez Diaz is the author of The Fire Eater (Texas Review Press, 2020), Bad Mexican, Bad American (Acre Books, 2024), The Parachutist (Sundress Publications, 2025) and Portrait of the Artist as a Brown Man (Red Hen Press, 2025), which won the Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award. He has been published in the Yale Review, the London Magazine, and in the Southern Review. Jose teaches generative workshops for Hugo House, Lighthouse Writers Workshops, The Writer’s Center, and elsewhere. Gigantic Sequins and Parcel have nominated him for the Pushcart Prize. Jose holds degrees in English and creative writing from the University of California, Berkeley, and Antioch University Los Angeles.
Malia Márquez was born in New Mexico and grew up in New England. She holds a BFA in 3D Fine Arts from Massachusetts College of Art & Design and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. She has worked as a restaurant server & cook, a high school art & film studies teacher, and once upon a time was co-owner of a small tortilla company. Author of This Fierce Blood (Acre Books, 2021) and City of Smoke and Sea (Red Hen Press, 2025), Malia lives with her family in Los Angeles.
Adela Najarro is the author of five poetry collections, including her latest collection Variations in Blue (Red Hen Press, 2025) through the Letras Latinas/Red Hen Collaborative. Her other works include Split Geography (Mouthfeel Press, 2015), Twice Told Over (Unsolicited Press, 2015), My Childrens (Unsolicited Press, 2017), and Volcanic Interruptions (Jamii Publishing, 2022), a chapbook featuring artwork by Janet Trenchard. She holds a doctorate in literature and creative writing from Western Michigan University, as well as an M.F.A. from Vermont College, and is widely published in numerous anthologies and literary magazines. Adela currently resides in Santa Cruz, California.
Luivette Resto is an award-winning poet, editor, mother, and middle school English teacher. She was born in Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico, and was proudly raised in the Bronx, New York. She is a CantoMundo and Macondo Fellow. Her books of poetry include Unfinished Portrait (2008) and Ascension (2013), both published by Tía Chucha Press, as well as Living on Islands Not Found on Maps (FlowerSong Press, 2022). Her work has been mentioned in the LA Times and Ms. Magazine, and her work has been published in North American Review. Luivette is the associate editor of Tía Chucha Press, and she serves on the boards of Women Who Submit and Beyond Baroque. She lives in the San Gabriel Valley in Los Angeles.

Literary Salon in Seattle! Celebrating Pacific Northwest Writers
2025-05-06 18:30 - 20:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | The Seattle Athenaeum, 93 Pike Street #301, Seattle, WA, 98101, United States
We are pleased to invite you to a literary salon in Seattle featuring an incredible slate of the Pacific Northwest’s finest writers: Gary Lemons (The Book of Spells), Molly Olguín (The Sea Gives Up the Dead), Kristen Millares Young (Subduction), and Amber Flame (apocrifa). Join us for a celebration of literature and small press publishing!
Tuesday, May 6
6:30 p.m. Reception with refreshments & light hors d’oeuvres
7:15 p.m. Program
Folio: The Seattle Athenaeum: 93 Pike St #307, Seattle, WA 98101
Parking: We recommend parking at The Pike Place Market Garage.
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Amber Flame is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, activist and educator. In addition to creating change as Program Director of Hedgebrook, Flame continues to work as a writing instructor in her community and for current and formerly incarcerated women and youth while working on a third poetry collection and making music with her band, Last of the RedHot Mamas. Her second collection of poetry, apocrifa (Red Hen Press), was described as “an elegant, loving, and lovely journey [that] lifts us up, drops us, then lifts us again.”
Gary Lemons has written poetry since 1965 and has published eight books of poetry, including his forthcoming collection, Book of Spells (Red Hen Press). Of the many things Gary has done to support his writing, he’s most grateful for the time spent reforesting clear-cuts in the Pacific Northwest where he has planted over 500,000 trees.
Molly Olguín is a queer writer, educator, and monster aficionado. She was the winner of the 2023 Grace Paley Prize and writes literary fantasy and horror. Molly teaches English and creative writing to high school students in Seattle. She will be reading from her forthcoming, “darkly brilliant” fantastical collection of short stories, The Sea Gives up the Dead (Red Hen Press).
Kristen Millares Young is a journalist, essayist, and author of the novel Subduction (Red Hen Press), named a staff pick by the Paris Review and called “whip-smart” by The Washington Post, “a brilliant debut” by The Seattle Times, and “utterly unique and important” by Ms. Magazine. A former Prose Writer-in-Residence at Hugo House, she is the editor of Seismic: Seattle, City of Literature, a finalist for a 2021 Washington State Book Award. Kristen was the researcher for The New York Times team that produced “Snow Fall,” which won a Pulitzer Prize.

LIVE ON ZOOM: Author Andrew Lam Discusses “Stories from the Edge of the Sea”
2025-05-06 19:00 - 20:15 (America/Los_Angeles) | CA
Andrew Lam discusses the fourteen pieces in Stories from the Edge of the Sea, exploring love and loss, lust and grief, longing and heartbreaks through the lives of Vietnamese immigrants and their children in California.
At times humorous and ecstatic, other times poetic and elegiac, the fourteen pieces in Stories from the Edge of the Sea explore love and loss, lust and grief, longing and heartbreaks through the lives of Vietnamese immigrants and their children in California. A younger dancer is haunted by memories of almost dying on a boat when they escaped from Vietnam, a widow processes her husband’s death through frantic Facebook postings, a writer enters an old lover’s home and sees a ghost at twilight. If the human heart is a vast, open-ended terrain, then Andrew Lam’s short stories are its mountains, valleys, and lakes. Together they seek to chart a barely explored country. “Andrew Lam’s Stories from The Edge of the Sea beautifully offers tales of longing, repression, and love as he recalls experiences of immigration and confronts the ruptures amidst generational memories. These stories are indelible, profound, and unforgettable.” —Lynn Novick, codirector of The Vietnam War
Time: 7:00PM – 8:15PM
Location: Live on Zoom, register directly HERE.

STORIES FROM THE EDGE OF THE SEA with author ANDREW LAM and Aimee Phan
2025-06-05 18:00 - 19:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Mechanics’ Institute, 57 Post Street, San Francisco, CA, 94104, United States
Join authors Andrew Lam and Aimee Phan in conversation on Lam’s new book, Stories from the Edge of the Sea. At times humorous and ecstatic, other times poetic and elegiac, the fourteen pieces in Stories from the Edge of the Sea explore love and loss, lust and grief, longing and heartbreaks through the lives of Vietnamese immigrants and their children in California. A younger dancer is haunted by memories of almost dying on a boat when they escaped from Vietnam, a widow processes her husband’s death through frantic Facebook postings, a writer enters an old lover’s home and sees a ghost at twilight. If the human heart is a vast, open-ended terrain, then Andrew Lam’s short stories are its mountains, valleys, and lakes. Together they seek to chart a barely explored country.
“Andrew Lam might’ve entitled this book War and Love, so universal and personal are his stories. I promise you: read Stories from the Edge of the Sea, and you will receive gifts of wonder and grief, shock and delight.”
—Maxine Hong Kingston, author of The Woman Warrior, China Men, Tripmaster Monkey, and others
Time: 6:00pm – 7:30pm
Location: Mechanics’ Institute

A Special Literary Salon with Maxine Hong Kingston and Andrew Lam in Berkeley
2025-06-14 14:30 - 16:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | CA
We are pleased to invite you to a literary salon in Berkeley featuring celebrated authors Maxine Hong Kingston (The Woman Warrior, Knopf, 1976) and Andrew Lam (Stories from the Edge of the Sea, Red Hen Press, 2025).
In addition to an inspiring conversation among these authors and Red Hen Press publisher, Kate Gale, you’ll enjoy delicious food and summer refreshments.
We hope you’ll join us for a celebration of literature and small press publishing! Please RSVP below to save your seat for this special event. We will be in touch by email with the event address soon after.
Date: Saturday, June 14
Time: 2:30p.m.– 4:30p.m.
Location: Private Residence, Berkeley, CA 94703 (address provided upon RSVP)
If you have any questions, please contact Brooke at brooke.erdmann@redhen.org

Maxine Hong Kingston, daughter of Chinese immigrants, is a literary pioneer, poet, memoirist, and fiction writer. She is the author of numerous nonfiction books including National Book Critics Circle Award-winner, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts (1976) and National Book Award-winner China Men (1980). She also edited the anthology Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace (2006), compiled from the work of participants in the therapeutic poetry workshops she has led for more than 500 veterans of war. Her honors include the National Medal of Arts (presented by former President Barack Obama), the National Endowment for the Humanities’ National Humanities Medal (presented by former President Bill Clinton), the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Award in Literature, the National Book Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and the title Living Treasure of Hawaii. She is a professor emeritus at UC Berkeley and lives in Oakland, California.
Andrew Lam fled Vietnam with his family during the fall of Saigon in April 1975 when he was 11 years old. He attended UC Berkeley, studying biochemistry, but abandoned plans for medical school after graduation. He entered the creative writing program at San Francisco State University instead. While still in school, he began writing for Pacific News Service and in 1993 won the Outstanding Young Journalist Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. He has written for many newspapers and magazines since, including National Geographic Traveler, Los Angeles Times Magazine, and The Nation. A regular commentator on NPR’s All Things Considered for over seven years, Lam is the author of four books and has won the PEN Open Book Award, the Josephine Miles Literary Award, and many others. In 2004 a PBS documentary about his life called, My Journey Home, in which a film crew followed him back to Vietnam, was aired nationwide. Lam has lectured at many universities and colleges and taught as a writer-in-residence at San Jose State University from 2015 to 2016.
“Andrew Lam might’ve entitled this book War and Love, so universal and personal are his stories. I promise you: read Stories from the Edge of the Sea, and you will receive gifts of wonder and grief, shock and delight.”
—Maxine Hong Kingston

Nan Rae Brush Painting Workshop
2025-06-21 13:00 - 16:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Red Hen Press, 1540 Lincoln Ave., Pasadena, CA, 91103, United States
We are pleased to invite you to a special brush painting workshop on Saturday, June 21 where you can learn how to paint one of the Four Gentlemen/Four Seasons of Brush painting – the Bamboo under the guidance of renowned Artist Nan Rae. Her style is based on the Literati or Gentlemen Scholars of ancient China, conveying the Chinese saying “from heart to arm… to hand to brush… to paper.” Combining the grace of the Literati style with an impressionist approach to color, Nan will also be painting the Poppy and the King of All Flowers – the Peony.
Space is limited so reserve your seat today!
Saturday, June 21
1:00pm – 4:00pm
Red Hen Press: 1540 Lincoln Ave, Pasadena, CA 91103
Tickets: $65 online, $80 at the door
All brush painting supplies will be provided!

APRIL OSSMANN, Beth Malow and Doug Teschner readings from WE and Beyond the Politics of Contempt
2026-02-26 18:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | Hartland Public Library, 153 US Rt 5, Hartland, VT, 05048, United States
Join April Ossmann, Beth Malow and Doug Teschner readings from We and Beyond the Politics of Contempt with discussion on bridging political divides at Hartland Public Library!

An Inaugural Reading & Conversation at Watermelon Books LA with Award-Winning Novelists Randa Jarrar & NANCY KRICORIAN
2026-02-27 19:30 - 21:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Watermelon Books, Holy Ground 4874 W. Adams Blvd, Los Angeles, CA, 90016, United States
Watermelon Books LA presents its first public event — a powerful evening of literature, solidarity, and shared histories of diaspora and genocide connecting Palestinian and Armenian experiences.
As survivors of ethnic cleansing and genocide, Armenian and Palestinian communities share intertwined histories of loss, endurance, and resistance that continue to inform liberation struggles and shape global solidarity today.
Through fiction and memoir, our featured authors explore the search for home across generations shaped by dispossession, displacement, and exile. Their works affirm writing as an act of resistance—one that preserves memory, asserts truth, and creates connections beyond borders.
NANCY KRICORIAN
Award-Winning novelist of the Armenian diaspora
Author of The Burning Heart of the World (2025), Zabelle(1998), Dreams of Bread and Fire (2003), and All the Light There Was (2013)
Nancy Kricorian is the author of four novels centered on post-genocide Armenian diaspora experience. Her most recent novel, The Burning Heart of the World, is set among Armenians in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War.. She has been a mentor with We Are Not Numbers <https://wearenotnumbers.org/> since 2015 and lives in New York. Learn more about Nancy at https://nancykricorian.net <https://nancykricorian.net/>
WHY THIS NIGHT MATTERS
This event reflects Watermelon Books’ commitment to building a cultural home rooted in history, truth, and literary resistance.
Stories connect us. Solidarity sustains us.

Helen Benedict’s THE SOLDIER’S HOUSE book launch at Book Culture Bookstore with Kate Manning
2026-04-22 17:00 - 19:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Book Culture Bookstore, 536 West 112th St, New York, NY, 10025, United States

Helen Benedict at Politics and Prose Bookstore in conversation with Mary Kay Zuravleff
2026-04-25 17:00 - 21:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Politics and Prose Bookstore, 5015 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, DC, 20008, United States

Helen Benedict at Eat Offbeat in NYC
2026-05-07 | Eat Offbeat, Chelsea Market, Manhattan, NY, United States

Helen Benedict discusses THE SOLDIER’S HOUSE with Margot Livesey at Brookline Booksmith
2026-05-14 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | brookline booksmith

Helen Benedict discusses THE SOLDIER’S HOUSE with Katherine Seligman at Book Passage
2026-05-26 19:00 - 23:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Book Passage, One Ferry Building 42, San Francisco, CA, 94111, United States
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Enjoy an evening of literature and discussion with Helen Benedict!
2026-05-28 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd, Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
Helen will be discussing her new book, a novel called The Soldier’s House. This new novel is a part of her series on the aftermath of the utterly unjustified war we waged against Iraq from 2001-11, it tells the story of an Iraqi widow, child, and mother who are brought over to the US by an American soldier. Why he does this and how they are entangled is all in the story, but essentially this is a novel about whether redemption and forgiveness are ever possible in the aftermath of an unjust war.
In short, it’s about refugees and war, past and present, but also — of course — about love!
Helens friend and wonderful writer Thomas Page McBee will discuss the book with her.
