Before We Remember We Dream

the new collection of poetry from Bryan Thao Worra and original art by Nor Sanavongsay blends memoir and Southeast Asian history, myth, horror and science fiction to weave a spellbinding meditation on 45 years of the Lao diaspora. These 55 poems focus largely on 1973 to the present from the banks of the Mekong River during the Secret War for Laos to unexpected intersections of Southeast Asian history in the small towns of America and Asian American history. Tragedy, humor, memory and dreams collide to provide readers an understanding of what has been, and what might be.

Bryan Thao Worra is a Lao American writer. Born in Vientiane, Laos in 1973, he holds over 20 awards for his writing and community leadership including an NEA Fellowship in Literature and was a Cultural Olympian representing Laos during the 2012 London Summer Games. In 2009 he received an Asian Pacific American Leadership Award from the governor’s Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans. He is the president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association, a 40-year old international literary organization celebrating the poetry of the imaginative and the fantastic.

He also holds a 2011 Youth Media Innovation Award from the University of Minnesota Human Rights Center and won the 2014 Elgin Award for Book of the Year from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association. He has presented at the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Loft Literary Center, Intermedia Arts, Kearny Street Workshop, the Institute for Contemporary Art, among many others, and recently as a Visiting Artist with University of Merced Center for the Humanities. He is the first Lao writer to be professional member of the Horror Writers Association and trained several years with Asian Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy on social justice during their National Gender Equity Campaign. 

One of the co-founders of the National Lao American Writers Summit, he is the author of 6 books, with work appearing internationally in Australia, Canada, Scotland, Germany, France, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Korea, and Pakistan.