Nov. 17: Minnesota State Mankato's Good Thunder Reading Series Continues with Visit from Playwright Saymoukda Vongsay

Thursday, October 24, 2024
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Workshop

Mankato, Minn. – Minnesota State University, Mankato’s 2024-2025 Good Thunder Reading Series will host playwright Saymoukda Vongsay on Thursday, Oct. 24 in the series’ second event of the 2024-2025 academic year. In addition, Minnesota State Mankato graduate student Libby Kassuelke, who received the University’s Robert C. Wright Minnesota Writer’s Scholarship, will read from her work Thursday evening.

All of the events are free and open to the public.

Oct. 24 schedule:

• 10-11 a.m. – Workshop, Memorial Library, first floor, SW corner.
• 3-3:45 p.m. – Craft Talk, in conversation with Gwen Westerman, Minnesota Poet Laureate and Minnesota State Mankato professor, Centennial Student Union, Room 245.
• 7:30-8:15 p.m. – Reading with Robert C. Wright Award winner Libby Kassuelke, Centennial Student Union, Room 245.

The following information about the writers was provided by the Good Thunder Reading Series:

Saymoukda Vongsay is an award-winning Lao American playwright. W. Kamau Bell, the host of CNN’s “United Shades of America,” called her work “revolutionary,” and the Ordway Center for Performing Arts honored her with a Sally Award for Initiative, which recognizes leadership never before seen in Minnesota that significantly impacts Minnesotans. She’s best known for her “Kung Fu Zombies” play cycle. She’s currently a Mellon Foundation Playwright in Residence at Theater Mu, Bush Foundation Leadership Fellow and Jerome Foundation/Camargo Foundation Artist in Residence in Cassis, France. Current commissions include Mixed Blood Theater (Minnesota), Theater Mu (Minnesota) and InterAct Theater Co. (Pennsylvania).

Libby Kassuelke is a southern Minnesota native. She grew up in rural New Ulm, received her bachelor’s degree in English with a multimedia writing minor from Bethany Lutheran College and is now a second-year MFA candidate at Minnesota State Mankato. Her work lives somewhere in and between the creative nonfiction and poetry genres.

Founded in 1981, the Good Thunder Reading Series brings nationally and internationally acclaimed writers from diverse backgrounds and literary traditions to Mankato, Minnesota, with the goal of promoting access to great literature, inspiring creativity, and connections in our communities, and fostering lively conversations about how writers work and why writing matters.

The Good Thunder Reading Series is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

The 2024-25 Good Thunder Reading Series also receives support from Minnesota State Mankato’s Department of Creative Arts; College of Humanities and Social Sciences; Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; the Nadine B. Andreas Endowment; the Eddice B. Barber Visiting Writer Endowment; the Robert C. Wright Endowment; the Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council; Friends of the Library; and individual donors.

For more information or to get involved, contact Robin Becker, a creative writing faculty member at Minnesota State Mankato, at robin.becker@mnsu.edu, or visit gt.mnsu.edu.

Minnesota State Mankato, a comprehensive university with 15,251 students, is part of the Minnesota State system, which includes 26 colleges and seven universities.