On Friday, March 21, 2025, I traveled to UMass Lowell’s South Campus to attend the Khmer Literary Arts Day. The event featured talks and readings by four Khmer authors and then workshops in which participants spent two hours in breakout groups for fiction, poetry, children’s literature, and memoir, working on their own pieces with guidance from the authors.

The event began with a traditional Cambodian prayer dance followed by remarks by Dr. Christine Su, a visiting faculty of Southeast Asian Studies in UMass Lowell’s Department of History. Dr. Su was the prime organizer of the event and made heartfelt remarks about her father, a survivor of the Cambodian genocide, who never talked about his experience. In that absence, she relies on stories shared by others to learn of the events that so affected her father and his family.

The next speaker was Joan Chun, the president and co-founder of the Cambodian American Literary Arts Association (CALAA) who spoke about the organization’s recent activities.

The featured authors were:

Bunkong Tuon

Bunkong Tuon – Bunkong spent several years in refugee camps in Thailand before coming to the United States in 1981 and settling in Revere, Massachusetts. He now teaches at Union College in Schenectady, New York, and is a widely published poet. He read from his debut novel, Koan Khmer and led the workshop on fiction.

Chanda Ouk Wolf

Chanda Ouk Wolf – Chanda is the daughter of survivors of the Cambodian genocide and is an advocate for the Cambodian diaspora in the US. She attended Lowell High School, Brandeis University, and Northeastern University School of Lowell. She read from her picture book, A dozen Delicious Donuts: A Sweet Cambodian American Story, which was published in 2024. She led the workshop on children’s literature.

Chath Piersath

Chath Piersath – Chath came to the US as a child refugee in 1981 and settled in Denver. He went to college in California and earned a master’s degree from UMass Lowell in Community Social Psychology. He lived in Lowell for eight years while working for the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association (CMAA). Chath is the author of numerous books and his work has appeared in several anthologies. He read from his latest book of poetry, On Earth Beneath Sky and led the workshop on poetry.

Sanary Phen

Sanary Phen – Sanary was born in a refugee camp in Thailand and came to the United States in 1981, and then resettled in Lowell where she has lived for the past 35 years. Sanary, who currently works for the Coalition for a Better Acre (CBA), has emerged as one of the most important storytellers of the Cambodian experience and is also a memoirist and poet. In her work with the Cambodian American Literary Arts Association (CALAA), she inspires others with backgrounds like hers to tell and preserve their stories in writing. She led the workshop on memoir.

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One of the final speakers was Sophy Theam, the co-chair of Proleung Khmer, a Lowell-based initiative dedicated to commemorating the 50th anniversary of the start of the Khmer Genocide. This Literary Arts Day was the first of more than a dozen local events over the next two months that all may participate in. For more information, and to donate to the organization, visit the Proleung Khmer website.