Experience and celebrate the voices shaping literature

Co-sponsored by UTA’s English Department and Four Palaces Publishing, this year’s Bountiful Harvest Reading Series will feature two celebrated writers, Truong Tran and Andrew Lam in a special reading, moderated panel, and book signing. 

Wednesday, October 8, 2025

5:00 – 7:00 PM

UT Arlington: 701 S. Nedderman Drive, Arlington, TX 76019
Chemistry & Physics Building, Room 303 (UTA)

Free with registration and open to the public. Limited space for 100. Donations of non-perishable food items are encouraged in support of the Maverick Food Pantry, which provides equitable access to food and essential items for the UTA community.

Event Highlights

• 5:00 – 6:30 PM – Public reading with Andrew Lam and Truong Tran (20 minutes each), followed by a Q&A moderated by Creative Writing professor Laura Kopchick.
• Book sales & signing – The UTA Bookstore will be on site with books available for purchase and signing.

This program is part of the Foreword Lit Festival and offers a rare opportunity to hear two powerful voices in contemporary Vietnamese American literature share the stage.

Join us for an evening of literature and conversation with acclaimed authors Andrew Lam and Truong Tran.

Friday, October 10, 2025

7:00 – 9:00 PM
Wild Detectives (Dallas): 314 W Eighth St, Dallas, TX 75208
Free to attend with registration (limited to 50 guests). Light refreshments provided.

Event Highlights

• Readings – Andrew Lam and Truong Tran will each share selections from their work.
• Moderated Dialogue – A conversation exploring themes of memory, migration, queerness, and cultural identity.
• Book Signing – Copies of each author’s books will be available for purchase and signing.

This program is part of the Foreword Lit Festival and offers a rare opportunity to hear two powerful voices in contemporary Vietnamese American literature share the stage.

Saturday, October 11, 2025

10 AM - 12 PM
Apprentice Creative Space (inside Oak Cliff Assembly): 919 Morrell Ave #110, Dallas, TX 75203
Free to attend with registration. 

The art of literary non-fiction (memoir, literary journalism, personal essay, etc) is a life long process but for the beginner, the first is to access one’s own voice.  So the workshop I propose is  Letter writing. Writing a letter to someone you know and admire or love, is the best way to introduce a beginning essayist to his or her own literary voice, which can be both at once intimate and profound. It can be both personal and philosophical.

Letter writing - arguable soon to be a  lost art- can be one of the most flexible and natural form of writing as a way to understand how one voice's works in a literary sense. 

This require practicing and reading out loud one’s work (a paragraph or two) and then we share our ideas as to how to deepen that work. 

Saturday, October 11, 2025

2 PM - 4 PM
Apprentice Creative Space (inside Oak Cliff Assembly): 919 Morrell Ave #110, Dallas, TX 75203
Free to attend with registration. 

If you could, what would you say? What is enough? Who is responsible for the suffering of your mother or father? Describe a morning you woke you woke without fear? 

The writer and philosopher Bhanu Kapil believes that writing is as much about asking as it is about telling. Ask yourself those questions and give yourself the opportunity to respond with commitment and honesty and you will have the makings of a book. This workshop will do the work of asking questions in an effort to dislodge those narratives tucked away and hidden deep within our muscle memories. 

And when you think you’ve accomplished the work of answering your own inquiries, ask yourself yet again the question of why. Why are you the person to to do this work? Why are you the person to write this story and why are you the one left holding the baggage. How do I say what needs to be said?