Keynote

For the 2013 R.I.C.E. Conference: Rediscovery, we are honored to have Bich Minh Nguyen as our featured keynote speaker. Nguyen was born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1974 and later raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She graduated from the University of Michigan with a Master of Fine Arts. She taught at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and currently teaches fiction and creative nonfiction at Purdue University.

Her novel Short Girls was named an American Book Award winner in fiction and and a best book of the year by Library Journal. Her memoir-in-essays, Stealing Buddha’s Dinner, received the PEN/Jerard Award and was a Chicago Tribune Best Book of 2007, a Kiriyama Prize Notable Book, and an Asian American Literature Award finalist. Stealing Buddha’s Dinner has been featured as a common read selection within numerous communities and universities, including the all-state Great Michigan Read.

Nguyen’s work has also appeared in publications such as The New York Times. She is at work on her next book of nonfiction, Owner of a Lonely Heart. Her next novel, Little Gray House in the West, will be published by Viking in 2014.

Learn more about Bich Minh Nguyen on her webpage.