VRA 2024: Announcing Keynote Speaker Kao Kalia Yang!
The VRA Executive Board is pleased to announce the VRA 2024 Conference keynote speaker, Kao Kalia Yang. She is a Hmong American teacher, speaker, and writer. Yang is the award-winning author of the memoirs, The Latehomecomer, The Song Poet, Somewhere in the Unknown World, and Where Rivers Part. She has authored several children's books, including A Map Into the World, The Most Beautiful Thing, and The Shared Room. Yang’s work has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Book Critics Circle Award, as Notable Books by the American Library Association, and garnered four Minnesota Book Awards. You can learn more about Kao Kalia Yang and her work on her website.
In her presentation, titled “Between Images and Words,” Kao Kalia Yang will read from and explore how the form of the picture book has expanded meaning within her work. Yang will discuss how the contributions of her illustrators have shifted and deepened her stories, how the conversation between both opens up possibilities for readers of all ages, and what lives in between images and words: the breadth of the emotional landscape.
The Convocation Keynote is scheduled for October 8th, 2024, at 3:30 p.m. CDT, and will be open to the public via Zoom. Register here!
Have you registered for the VRA 2024 Conference yet? Register now to take advantage of reduced Early Bird registration rates, and join us October 8-10th, on-site at the Embassy Suites in downtown Minneapolis or virtually. Check out the conference website for more information. The program is available on Sched, with full descriptions of each session.