Dec 19
An Evening of Children's Literature with Kao Kalia Yang '03 and Friends
Carls in the Twin Cities are invited to
An Evening of Children's Literature
with Kao Kalia Yang '03 and Friends
Date: Friday, December 19, 2025
Time and duration:
7:00 p.m.
2 hours with intermission
Location:
Ordway Center for the Performing Arts
345 Washington Street
Saint Paul, MN 55102
Cost:
Tickets range from $14.49 to $30.98 (including fees).
Tickets:
For more information and to purchase tickets, visit the Ordway website.
Join award-winning Hmong American author Kao Kalia Yang '03 and her friends as they adventure into the world of children's literature. In an unprecedented and once-in-a-lifetime event, Yang will take to the stage to read from her body of children's books. She'll invite friends and collaborators to sing songs, to read, to honor, and to stitch together a story of a child, a family, and a community holding fast, holding steady in a trembling world.
Kao Kalia Yang '03 is a celebrated Hmong American writer whose work crosses audiences and genres. Kalia writes, teaches, and speaks about her early years in a refugee camp in Thailand and growing up as an immigrant in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where her family resettled as war refugees when she was six years old.
Her work has been widely recognized. In addition to four Minnesota Book Awards, she has received the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Chautauqua Prize, PEN USA literary awards, and many more. In 2022, she was awarded the A. P. Anderson Award for Outstanding Contributions to Literature and the Arts in Minnesota, and in 2024 she received an honorary degree from Carleton.
Yang has earned prestigious McKnight, Soros, and Guggenheim fellowships. As the Edelstein-Keller Writer in Residence at the University of Minnesota, she has taught workshops in the Master of Fine Arts program at the University of Minnesota and serves as an advocate and mentor for students. Kalia returned to Carleton for the 2016–17 academic year as the Benedict Distinguished Visiting Professor in American Studies and English.