My first freelance radio story for The California Report aired on Friday, Oct. 21. I reported on the Fresno-based Hmong American Writers’ Circle and their groundbreaking new collection of literature, How Do I Begin? It was a great feeling to hear myself on the radio telling a good story, and the subject matter had a lot to do with my feeling of success.
I was lucky to have long interview conversations with two HAWC members whose writing I’ve long admired: Soul Choj Vang and Burlee Vang. We talked about the book, we talked about writing, and we talked about the immigrant experience in America, which is captured so vividly throughout the book. I invited both Soul and Burlee to come into The California Report’s bureau office not only for their main interviews, but also to perform some of their work. Excerpts from Soul’s poem “Here I Am,” which inspired the anthology’s title, and Burlee’s poem “Eating Without the Poet” made it into the finished story, and I was so glad that listeners got to hear snippets of these two remarkable writers’ work in their own voices.

Burlee Vang, who teaches at Fresno City College, founded the Hmong American Writers' Circle in 2004.
Here’s the link to the final radio story. Please listen to the audio version first, before you read the extended text version that I wrote for the website. Then, at the bottom of the text version, listen to the full poems by Soul and Burlee.
Whoa. That’s my teacher. I didn’t know he did that much.