Tran is Minnesota’s first Vietnamese librarian and an active member of the Minnesota Vietnamese American community. 3 with illustrators Nguyen Dong and Nguyen Thi Hop in attendance. Tran Thi Minh Phuoc, author of “Vietnamese Children’s Favorite Stories,” kicked off the first reading Oct. “It’s a great way to connect with the Vietnamese community and share what I’m passionate about,” she said. Her handle on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok is also maistorybook, which utilizes her Vietnamese name, Mai. “I’m very honored to be the moderator of the first inaugural Viet Book Fest,” said Lê Espiritu, who blogs about children’s books on. With the help of Anat Schwartz-Meron, a tech-savvy doctoral student at UC Irvine and a “Humanities Out There” fellows intern, the book festival was rescheduled for this month, and the timing couldn’t be better.ĭuring the Viet Book Fest, VAALA is offering four pre-recorded children’s book readings, followed by a live Q&A with the authors and illustrators, moderated by Maya Lê Espiritu, a third-grade teacher from Oceanside and children’s book storyteller on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, where she’s got 199,000 followers. Like This Free Civic News? Support Voice of OC Today. “We recognized that ‘letters’ is an important part of our name.” “Our board came up with it in 2019 as a new program,” said Christine Tran, managing director of VAALA. However, the Viet Book Fest has actually been in the works since last year. 9-11, but was canceled this year due to COVID-19. That festival was supposed to run this weekend, Oct. The online book fest could be considered substitute programming for VAALA, the Orange County-based nonprofit organization that produces the annual Viet Film Fest. The Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association (VAALA) is presenting its first-ever Viet Book Fest, from 3-4 p.m.

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DC Festival of Heroes by Minh Lê