Mark your calendars and get those creative juices flowing! Spend your spring break with LLOTP and other literary and visual artists, activists, shakers and community builders this year at the 2016 Lao American Writers Summit from May 27-May 28, 2016 in sunny San Diego, California.

LLOTP is excited to co-host and sponsor this year’s 2nd annual event. Keynote speakers include LLOTP editor and poet Bryan Thao Worra and Legacies of War‘s Channapha Khamvongsa.

About the summit:

40 Years of Lao Diaspora, less than 40 Books of Lao American writers published. It has been a challenge for the Lao American community to be visible. Community issues, expression in art, and access to higher education are core to the problem of invisibility regarding Lao Americans. The summit aims to be a gathering space for creatives and professionals who are Lao American as well as those who support the community. Its objective is to open dialogue on the current state of creative writing, visual artistry, social media, and community advocacy of Lao Americans whose history ties with the events tracing back to the 1975 Diaspora of people of Laos. Such dialogue will welcome the discussion of ideas and methods that are used to help define their personal work and how it relates to the community. The summit will attempt to empower participants in defining their narrative, their voices, and their stories in regards to the writing space, which will be the unifying medium that links creatives and professionals. Such themes will thread into efforts that will support the general community in achieving higher-education, issue awareness / organizing, and policy writing by creating the framework for writers to discuss ideas and methods of producing work. This summit is an answer to the question of how do Lao Americans use writing to push art, creative works, and policy/grants using ingrained themes of Lao / Lao American Diaspora history to create visibility of community issues while crafting work that will be coined as Lao American for future years to come. It is a space for discussing whether such actions are possible. The summit will then end with a reception that showcases the works of Lao American Artist to help send off summit participates with inspiration.

Featuring art exhibit, entertainment, panels, workshops, and an evening reception.

2015 Lao Symposium, Minneapolis, MN

Get the latest updates on the summit’s Facebook event page or email laoamwriters@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter or Facebook with #BeLaod. See you there?