Interview with Diana Khoi Nguyen
- Erin Austin
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Diana Khoi Nguyen, author of Root Fractures and Ghost Of, a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the 2019 Kate Tufts Discovery Award shares some insights into her creative process. Diana is this year's judge for the Lefty Blondie Press First Chapbook Award competition that closes March 31, 2026.
LBP: Do you have a dedicated writing space? What does your writing space look like? What is not included?
Diana Khoi Nguyen: I have a desk that seems only for work meetings and is a dumping ground for girls and books. I’ve come to accept I’m a chair/lap desk person. Here’s my current home perch.
LBP: What does your current writing routine look like? Has it always been this way or how has it changed?
DKN: t’s been mostly consistent for the past ten years: daily marathons at least twice a year. Usually 15- day spurts in exchange with other writers and artists!
LBP: What do you do in your non-generative times?
DKN: Foraging! Trying to stay healthy, be kind, open to the world, and gather bits of wonder, curiosity.
LBP: How has your relationship to writing / making art changed throughout your life? Are there clear demarcations where you knew there was a shift, or have the changes been gradual, subtle?
DKN: The clearest demarcation is after my brother’s death in 2014, when I started incorporating work with images. Since then, I now engage in image, video, audio, textile, and 3D possibilities with the page.
LBP: What are you working on now?
DKN: Unsure what to call it, really. A fictional nonfiction project, or autobiographical fiction project that is reflexive. A ways to sort through familial and diasporic memories and yearnings. How grief moves in diaspora.
LBP: How do you approach a new project (poem/manuscript/art project)?
DKN: Honestly, but not thinking consciously about it. So, obliquely. In little bits, encounters. Assemblage an accumulation.
LBP: How do you keep the fire going for an extended project?
DKN: Through accountability with others in my close writing sphere and the daily making marathons that happen biannually.
LBP: What can poetry do?
DKN: Manifest mysteries in more tangible and gel ways—and be held across minds and imaginations.
LBP: Any recommendations for us? Books, poems, indie presses to follow? What about movies? Music? Museums to visit? Cool stuff we should check out?
DKN: I’m very obsessed with Sky Hopinka’s video work. And I perennially return to Jenny Erpenbeck’s fiction (via translation).
Diana Khoi Nguyen is the author of Root Fractures and Ghost Of, a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the 2019 Kate Tufts Discovery Award. She is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, and her video work has been exhibited at ICA Pittsburgh. A Kundiman and MacDowell fellow, and member of the Vietnamese artist collective, She Who Has No Master(s), Nguyen teaches creative writing in the MFA programs at Randolph College and the University of Pittsburgh, where she directs the Pittsburgh Contemporary Writer Series and is an Interim Director of the Writing Program. www.dianakhoinguyen.com
Diana Khoi Nguyen's two outrageously fantastic books, Root Fractures and Ghost Of
Sky Hopinkas
background on Jenny Erpenbeck
Lefty Blondie Press First Chapbook Award
Submit your chapbook manuscripts from JANUARY 1 - MARCH 31, 2026
2026 chapbook contest judge:
We welcome poetry chapbook manuscripts written by those who:
self-identify as a woman or non-binary individual
40+ years old
writing in English
have yet to publish a poetry chapbook or full-length poetry book before September 30, 2026
Pay-what-you-can reading fee via Duosuma tip jar!
All tip jar donations support LBP's mission
to promote the poetry of self-identifying women and non-binary people.
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