Bich Minh Nguyen

Bich Minh Nguyen (pronounced Bic Min Ngwin), who goes by Beth, was a baby when her family fled Vietnam on April 29, 1975. They eventually settled in Michigan, where Nguyen grew up. These experiences formed the basis of her memoir, Stealing Buddha’s Dinner, which received the PEN/Jerard Award and was named a best book of the year by The Chicago Tribune. Nguyen has appeared on programs such as PBS NewsHour and NPR’s All Things Considered to discuss the prevalent themes in her book—the refugee experience, immigration, food, and family—and how they relate to so many other areas of life. Stealing Buddha’s Dinner has also been selected for numerous all-college and all-community reads.

Her first novel, Short Girls, was published by Penguin in 2010; it received an American Book Award and was named a Library Journal best book. Nguyen’s most recent book is the novel Pioneer Girl, published by Viking in 2014, about a Vietnamese-American family with mysterious ties to the real-life Laura Ingalls Wilder family. Nguyen’s work has also appeared in the New York Times, Literary Hub, and The Paris Review. She also coedited three anthologies: 30/30: Thirty American Stories from the Last Thirty Years (Penguin Academic), Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: I & Eye (Longman), and The Contemporary American Short Story (Longman). She has taught creative writing at various conferences, including Aspen Summer Words, Key West Literary Seminars, Port Townsend Writers Conference, VONA/Voices, and Kundiman, and is a professor of creative writing at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Beth Nguyen