OCEAN VUONG, writer, professor, and photographer, is the author of the novels On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, and The Emperor of Gladness. A nominee for the National Book Award and a recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Grant, he is also the author of the poetry collections, Night Sky with Exit Wounds and Time is a Mother. Born in Saigon, Vietnam and raised in Hartford, Connecticut in a working class family of nail salon and factory laborers, he currently splits his time between Western Massachusetts and New York City, where he serves as a Professor in Modern Poetry and Poetics in the MFA Program at NYU.
DAVID BUDBILL (1940-2016) is the author of eight books of poems, seven plays, two novels, a collection of short stories, a picture book for children, the libretto for an opera, and dozens of essays. His play, Judevine, has been staged in 34 states. As the first person in his family to graduate from high school, David was keenly attuned to issues of social, racial, and economic justice. He performed his work in many venues, from schools and prisons in Vermont to performance spaces in New York City, often with musician William Parker and others. David lived in the mountains of Northern Vermont for almost 50 years. Nadine Budbill and others will be reading his poems and presenting scenes from Jeudevine.
JULIA ALVAREZ Julia Alvarez left the Dominican Republic for the United States at the age of ten. She is the author of six novels, three nonfiction books, four collections of poetry, and eleven books for children and young adults. In 2013 President Barak Obama awarded Alvarez the National Medal of Arts in recognition of her extraordinary storytelling. In 2024, she was the subject of an American Masters documentary, “Julia Alvarez: A Life Reimagined, “on PBS. In 2026, Knopf will publish Visitations, a new collection of poetry. Alvarez is one of the founders of Border of Lights, a movement to promote peace and collaboration between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. She lives in Vermont.
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