The Sandbar Storytelling Festival, in partnership with the Minnesota Marine Art Museum, opens its 2023 October weekend with Water Stories, featuring Twin Cities Hmong-American writer and storyteller, Kao Kalia Yang. Yang’s performance will kick off the festival at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 12, at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum.
Yang is the author of the memoirs The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, The Song Poet, Somewhere in the Unknown World, and much more. Yang’s work has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, and she has been honored with the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Chautauqua Prize, the PEN USA literary awards, and the Dayton’s Literary Peace Prize. Other accolades include: Notable Books by the American Library Association, Kirkus Best Books of the Year, the Heartland Bookseller’s Award, and four Minnesota Books awards. Yang’s libretto for The Song Poet saw its premiere with Minnesota Opera in March 2023 and is the first Hmong story to be adapted for the operatic stage.
The event, which takes place in the Minnesota Marine Art Museum’s Gallery 5, will also include the introduction of the 2023 Sandbar Storytelling Festival storytellers. Be the first to meet and greet these internationally known artists who will perform on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 13-14, at Saint Mary’s University.
Tickets to Water Stories are $25 and include a traditional Hmong dessert following the performance. Tickets can be purchased starting Monday, Sept. 21, at sandbarstorytellingfestival.org as well as at the door, beginning at 6:30 p.m.
The Sandbar Storytelling Festival is sponsored by SEMAC whose activities are made possible by the voters of Minnesota through grants from the MN State Arts Board thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts & cultural heritage fund.
