Planning Committee

Mission/Vision | No Coast 2011 | Planning Committee | Co-Sponsors

Bao Phi was recently promoted from his job as “Champagne of Beers” to “King of Beers.” He was born in Viet Nam and yes that’s the way it’s spelled. He has lived in Minnesota since he was about 8 months old, loved stories about King Arthur and Hobbits and learned to run real fast from Franklin Library to home to avoid getting his ass kicked by gangsters when he was young, and has been a performance poet circa 1991. He has been to every Summit, except the one in Minnesota. Which he plans on attending.

Robert Farid Karimi, interdisciplinary playwright/humorist, National poetry slam champion, Def Poetry Jam performer, who loves to play and feed people, performs Self (the Remix), Farid Mercury, and The Cooking Show con Karimi y Comrades and has been published in places like the Los Angeles Times and other fun publications like Total Chaos edited by Jeff Chang. He writes, directs, and seeks funds/resources for his politically sexy, culturally mixed creations. Next project: Diabetes of Democracy, a series of live humorous Cooking Show experiences that deals with Type 2 Diabetes in Communities of Color. Go to kaoticgood.com or ThePeoplesCook.org for more.

ED BOK LEE
Communicable Community Mango Lassi Liaison/Southern Star Warden

Ed Bok Lee is a former bartender, phys ed instructor, journalist, and translator. He has shared his work in journals, anthologies, on stages across North America, Asia, and Europe, on public radio and MTV, and teaches at Metropolitan State University. Lee holds an MFA from Brown University and is the author of Real Karaoke People, a national bestseller in poetry and the winner of an Asian American Literary Award (Members’ Choice) and the PEN Open Book Award. His second book, Whorled (Coffee House Press) is forthcoming this September. www.edboklee.com

May Lee-Yang is a writer and performance artist based out of St. Paul, Minnesota. In her 9-5 life, she works as the Interim Executive Director at Hmong Arts Connection, a nonprofit devoted to inspiring and promoting artistic expressions of the Hmong culture. Her current artistic projects include Confessions of a Lazy Hmong Woman and Ten Reasons Why I’d Be a Bad Porn Star. More info at www.lazyhmongwoman.com.

Tou SaiKo Lee is a Spoken Word artist down with the movement of Hip Hop as a Community Organizer and Emcee that disarms police brutality, disconnects bling chains and dissolves fake emcees like peppermint ICE Cream on both of his tongues. He is the emcee for bad asstro hip hop-funk band PosNoSys. A former gang member that now seeks social justice and redemption, he desires to jam on fruit juices while jackin gummy candies in his thermal long johns worn through Minnesota Winter.

Katie Hae Leo is a poet, playwright and essayist whose work has appeared in various publications, including Asian American Poetry & Writing, Water~Stone Review, 60 Seconds to Shine: One-minute Monologues for Men, and Utne Reader. Her chapbook Attempts at Location is available through Finishing Line Press; and her play Four Destinies will premiere in Fall 2011 through Mu Performing Arts. She’s thrilled to be working on the 2011 APIA Spoken Word & Poetry Summit with this beautiful community of folks.

Julayne Lee has been involved with the APIA Spoken Word & Poetry Summit since 2003 as a participant and fundraiser. The Summit has been a source of inspiration, community, liberation and survival for her. After attending the Chicago, Boston, and Bay Area Summits, she participated in the 2010 APIA Open Mic at the National Poetry Slam in St. Paul, a fundraiser for the 2011 Twin Cities Summit. She has been published in “Homeland Insecurities,” a chapbook by Asian American writers produced to benefit the 2003 Chicago Summit and the O.K.A.Y. (Overseas Korean Artists e-Yearbook), Volume 5. The Loft, home to the 2011 Summit, is a favorite space of hers as it regularly plays host to Equilibrium, stage for a number of Summit artists.

Julayne also serves on the Board of Advisors for MAASU (www.maasu.org). In addition to nearly anything Asian she often dines on steak salads, crab cakes and fish tacos while sipping on Penfold’s Rawson’s Retreat Shiraz Cabernet or Barefoot Moscato.

Kim Dong Hoon AKA Kurt Blomberg is a Korean adoptee who arrived in Minneapolis when he was 14 months old. He grew up in the Northern suburbs of St. Paul where he was one of the few and not so proud. This will be his first Summit. He is grateful to have had the opportunity to work with such talented and dedicated people.

Juliana Hu Pegues
Program Team Leader/Baby Mama Extraordinaire

Juliana is a garlic-chopping, diaper-changing, tree-hugging, pen-wielding poet, performer, and playwright who is currently working on her Ph.D. You can find her work, creative and academic, in Dragon Ladies: Asian American Feminists Breathe Fire, MELUS (Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the U.S.) Journal, Sojourner, Lodestar Quarterly, Mizna Journal, Sinister Wisdom, Journal of the Asian American Renaissance, and The Very Inside: Asian and Pacific Islander Lesbians and Bisexual Women’s Anthology. Born in Taiwan and raised in Alaska, she currently lives west of the Mississippi River in a house that needs fixing along with her adorable family and naughty animals.

Simrat Kang is a rice-fed Indian-American poet and anthropologist based in the Twin Cities.
Whether she is in Delhi, Jaipur or Sai Gon, the Minneapolis skyline and Mississippi always manage to call her home. She attributes her love of food to her grandmother, literature to her father and still wonders how fine art and ethnography crept in. She is committed to supporting and studying refugee and diaspora issues in the U.S., and works with local refugees in her spare time. Simrat is currently employed as an anthropologist and has been published in the University of St. Thomas literature review, the Summit Avenue Review.

Thuyet Nguyen is a former 3rd place finisher in his 4th grade class spelling bee. He is a former founding member of the breakdancing crew, Freestyle Phenomenon. He is also the former (and first) house DJ for the Equilibrium Spoken Word series at The Loft Literary Center. Thuyet has attended and performed at the previous Chicago (2003) and Boston (2005) APIA Spoken Word Summits… which has led him to being today, the crazysexyfool Summit organizer known as Maitri World Peace. Maitri loves all forms of Asian hot pots but strongly despises Belgium waffles as he believes food should NEVER BE NEUTRAL and breakfast is not too early in the day to stand for something!

Alicia Tran has been thrown out of more country music saloons than you. Country line-dancing is not a form of entertainment to her… it is a martial art that requires casualties. She takes this same approach as an organizer for the Twin Cities Summit and many vendors have felt the “achy” and “breaky” of her heart-shaped fists. She is also married to that jackass, Maitri World Peace… although you shouldn’t mention that if she’s wearing her cowboy boots with the spurs.

Joua Lee is a Hmong American spoken word artist and poet born and raised in the Twin Cities. She has recently been working with youth and social justice performance and media. Like many other recent graduates, she hopes to figure out her future as she goes. She is excited to attend her first summit in Minnesota.

Stevie Peace is a writer and organizer out of Shoreview, Minnesota who counts the Twin Cities as one of his homes and loves. Radical struggles, militant research, and companionship have all crisscrossed through his commitments and (mostly unpaid) work, and – short of revolution – that suits him just fine. He’s currently studying radical mappings of Asian America in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, but more importantly, he loves okra, laughs often and inappropriately, reads good books in poor lighting, and really likes your shirt, where’d you get it?

Eva Song Margolis works professionally towards economic justice through asset building and economic sustainabilty initiatives. She was born in Korea and raised in Minnesota.

Linda Nguyễn grew up on the internet and hustles culture at surnameviet.tumblr.com

Josh Dyrud can most often be found behind the sound board. Helping artists get heard one Soundwave at a time.