Ocean Vuong

Actor Ke Huy Quan converses with Pullitzer prize-winning host, Viet Thanh Nguyen.ABOUT THE GUESTKe Huy Quan, also known as Jonathan Ke Quan, is a Vietnamese-born Chinese-American actor and stunt choreographer. Quan played Short Round in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" (1984) and Data in "The Goonies" (1985). In 1990 and 1991, he co-starred as Jasper Kwong in the sitcom "Head of the Class" over two seasons. Quan stopped acting due to a lack of opportunity in the late 1990s, when he received his film degree from USC School of Cinematic Arts. He went on to work as a stunt coordinator and assistant director. He returned to acting as Waymond Wang in the film "Everything Everywhere All at Once" (2022), a role for which he received critical acclaim, and which earned him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Artists and activists Thi Bui and Thao Ha speak with hosts Philip Nguyen and Viet Thanh Nguyen.ABOUT THE GUESTSThi Bui is a writer and artist from Việt Nam, California, and New York, now planting roots in New Orleans. Best known for her graphic memoir, The Best We Could Do, which tells the story of her family amidst Việt Nam's struggles for independence, she has also been a longtime educator in public high schools, a professor of comics, a public speaker, an organizer and artist-activist, an ambivalent sculptor and puppeteer, a fledgling screenwriter, and an award-winning illustrator of children’s books and comics journalism.Thao Ha is a Vietnamese refugee, sociology professor, author, filmmaker, and non-profit leader. She is the current board president of the Vietnamese American Arts and Letters Association (VAALA), board chair of the Doan Foundation, and founder/executive director of Collective Freedom. Love Letters to the Dirty South is her forthcoming memoir about what it means to love, long for, and lose someone incarcerated. 

Comedians Will Pepper and Danny Plom converse with hosts Viet Thanh Nguyen and Philip Nguyen.ABOUT THE GUESTSWill Pepper is a Vietnamese American comedian based in Los Angeles whose comedy blends sharp storytelling with painfully honest observations. He’s a recurring performer on the Uncle Roger Show, with episodes featuring him reaching over 10 million views, and his stand-up clips have amassed millions more online. He has toured internationally opening for Jason Cheny and Jimmy O. Yang, and has headlined the New York Comedy Festival. His work has been featured on Netflix Is A Joke Radio. In addition to stand-up, Will starred in the short film Happy Thoughts, which premiered at the Rose Wagner Theater, and has appeared in national commercials for Apple, Best Buy, and Amazon.Danny Plom is a Cambodian-American comedian and actor based in Los Angeles CA. He has performed at iconic comedy venues like The Laugh Factory, The Comedy Store, and The Hollywood Improv. You’ve also seen him on your TV screens appearing on Amazon, Netflix and Hulu. He is also the co-host of the viral comedy show Afronoodles!

Santa Clara County Supervisor Betty Duong and NBC anchor and investigative journalist Vicky Nguyen converse with hosts Viet Thanh Nguyen and Philip Nguyen.ABOUT THE GUESTS:Betty Duong represents more than 400,000 San José residents on the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. She proudly represents District Two, comprised of Downtown, the East Side, Little Saigon, and the surrounding neighborhoods. The proud daughter of immigrants, Betty is the first Vietnamese American and the first Asian American woman to serve on the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. Vicky Nguyen is an NBC News chief consumer investigative correspondent, anchor of NBC News Daily and New York Times best selling author of the new memoir “Boat Baby.” She reports for the Today show, Nightly News with Tom Llamas and NBC News Now. She graduated as valedictorian from the University of San Francisco. Vicky lives in New York with her husband and three daughters.

Poets Barbara Jane Reyes and Karen Llagas converse with hosts Viet Thanh Nguyen and Philip Nguyen.ABOUT THE GUESTSBarbara Jane Reyes, born in Manila and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, is an acclaimed Filipina American poet and author of several books, including Gravities of Center (2003), Diwata (2010), and Letters to a Young Brown Girl (2020), with Daughtersong Diaspore forthcoming in 2027. She has also published chapbooks and numerous poems and essays in major literary journals and outlets.A recipient of awards such as the James Laughlin Award and a Mellon Foundation Fellowship, Reyes holds degrees from UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University. She teaches Philippine Studies at the University of San Francisco and lives in Oakland with her husband, poet Oscar Bermeo.Karen Llagas’s new poetry collection, All of Us Are Cleaved, is recently published by Nomadic Press in 2023. Her first collection of poetry, Archipelago Dust, was published by Meritage Press in 2010. Other recent projects include translations of Filipino children’s books into English: Dancing Hands: A Story of Friendship in Filipino Sign Language (Chronicle Books, 2023) & How Do You Eat Color (Eerdman’s Book for Young Readers, 2025). A recipient of a RHINO Founder's Prize, Filamore Tabios, Sr. Memorial Poetry Prize & a Hedgebrook residency, her poems, translations, and book reviews have also appeared in various journals and anthologies, including most recently, Dear Human at the Edge of Time: Poems on Climate Change in the United States (Paloma Press, 2023). She teaches Filipino at UC Berkeley and divides her time between San Francisco and Los Angeles. You can find more about her at www.karenllagas.com.

Evyn Le Espiritu Gandhi, Asian American Studies professor, and Cathy Linh Che, writer and multidisciplinary artist, converse with Viet Thanh Nguyen.ABOUT THE GUESTS:Evyn Lê Espiritu Gandhi is an associate professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (Tovaangar). Dr. Gandhi’s first book, Archipelago of Resettlement: Vietnamese Refugee Settlers and Decolonization across Guam and Israel-Palestine (University of California Press, 2022), was awarded the 2025 ACLS Open Access Book Prize in History. She is the co-editor with Vinh Nguyen of The Routledge Handbook of Refugee Narratives (Routledge, 2023). She is currently working on a second book project which revisits Gramsci’s “southern question” by constellating the southern spaces of South Korea, South Vietnam, and the US South during the Cold War and its afterlives.Cathy Linh Che is a writer and multidisciplinary artist. She is the author of Becoming Ghost (Washington Square Press, 2025), a Finalist for the National Book Award, Split (Alice James Books) and co-author of An Asian American A to Z: a Children’s Guide to Our History (Haymarket Books). Her video installation Appocalips is an Open Call commission with The Shed, and her film We Were the Scenery was shortlisted for an Academy Award and won the Short Film Jury Award: Nonfiction at the Sundance Film Festival. She teaches as Core Faculty in Poetry at the low residency MFA program in Creative Writing at Antioch University in Los Angeles and works as Executive Director at Kundiman. She lives in New York City.

Writer and illustrator Thi Bui and writer Vu Tran converse with hosts Viet Thanh Nguyen and Philip Nguyen.ABOUT THE GUESTSThi Bui is a writer and artist from Việt Nam, California, and New York, now planting roots in New Orleans. Best known for her graphic memoir, The Best We Could Do, which tells the story of her family amidst Việt Nam's struggles for independence, she has also been a longtime educator in public high schools, a professor of comics, a public speaker, an organizer and artist-activist, an ambivalent sculptor and puppeteer, a fledgling screenwriter, and an award-winning illustrator of children’s books and comics journalism.Vu Tran is the author of Dragonfish, a NYT Notable Book, and a forthcoming novel, Your Origins. His writing has also appeared in the O. Henry Prize Stories, Best American Mystery Stories, Ploughshares, Virginia Quarterly, and McSweeney’s, among other publications. He is the recipient of a Whiting Award and fellowships from the NEA, MacDowell, Yaddo, and Bread Loaf. Born in Saigon and raised in Oklahoma, Vu received his MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and his PhD from the Black Mountain Institute in Las Vegas. He teaches English and Creative Writing at the University of Chicago, where he is an Associate Professor of Practice in the Arts and director of undergraduate studies. 

Filmmaker Bao Nguyen converses with Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pullitzer prize-winning writer.ABOUT THE GUESTBao Nguyen is an Emmy- and Grammy-nominated Vietnamese American filmmaker whose work explores memory and myth. His films have premiered at major festivals including Sundance, Cannes, and Telluride, and he directed Be Water, ESPN’s most-watched 30 for 30, and The Greatest Night in Pop, Netflix’s number one English-language film in its debut week and a multi-Emmy, Critics Choice, PGA, and Grammy nominee. His latest film, The Stringer (Sundance 2025), premiered on Netflix on November 28th. A partner at EAST Films and a Gold House A100 and BAFTA Breakthrough honoree, he recently joined the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Award-winning writer Ocean Vuong converses with Pulitzer Prize-winning host Viet Thanh Nguyen.ABOUT THE GUESTOcean Vuong is the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collections Night Sky with Exit Wounds and Time Is a Mother, as well as the New York Times bestselling novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. A recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and the American Book Award, he used to work as a fast-food server, which inspired The Emperor of Gladness. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, he currently splits his time between Northampton, Massachusetts, and New York City.

Writers Aimee Phan and Christina Vo converse with hosts Viet Thanh Nguyen and Philip Nguyen in this special live episode, in partnership with KALW.ABOUT THE GUESTSAimee Phan was born and raised in Orange County, California. She is the author of two books for adults, We Should Never Meet: Stories and the novel The Reeducation of Cherry Truong. Her most recent book is The Lost Queen, the first book in a young adult fantasy duology. She has received fellowships and residencies from the NEA, MacDowell Colony, the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center, Djerassi and Hedgebrook. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Time, USA Today and CNN.com among other publications. Christina Vo is the author of My Vietnam, Your Vietnam and The Veil Between Two Worlds. She is currently pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Drawing from her Vietnamese American heritage and a life lived across cultures, her work explores identity, belonging, inherited trauma, and emotional transformation.