Serena Puang is a cultural critic, freelance journalist, and content creator based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She has written for the New York Times, The Boston Globe, NBC, and many other publications. She’s passionate about writing about communities of color, accessibility, and books, and she writes a monthly column in Rooted, called "Reading the Room," where she features books written by authors from historically underrepresented communities in publishing. 

Schedule

12:15 pm to 1:00 pm
Bienville Building, Conference Center 118
Remembering, Reimagining, Becoming: Vietnamese Identity 50 Years After the War
Acclaimed author and co-editor Thi Bui and artist Sam Nga Blum discuss the evolution of Vietnamese diaspora identity with journalist Serena Puang. Using Bui's memoir, The Best We Could Do, as a touchstone for remembering the refugee experience, they will explore how contemporary writers and artists—as seen in the experimental and wide-ranging McSweeney's 78: The Make Believers—are now actively reimagining and creating a new, eclectic cultural language for what it means to be becoming Vietnamese in the world today.

2:00 pm to 3:00 pm
State Library, Fifth Floor, Serials
Fiction After the End: Building, Surviving, and Seeing the World Anew
Eiren Caffall, All the Water in the World: A Novel
Malaika Favorite, After Color
Joshua Wheeler, The High Heaven: A Novel
with moderator Serena Puang

Moderator