Bryan Thao Worra was adopted in 1973 by an American pilot flying in Laos. Thao Worra is the author of over nine books of poetry on the Lao American diaspora, and has published in more than a hundred publications, including Poetry, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, AGNI, London Ghetto Poets, Defenestration, National Geographic’s Poetry of the U.S., Asian American Literary Review, and Harvard Asian American Policy Review. For six years he served as president of the international Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association, and he represented the nation of Laos during the London 2012 Summer Olympics Poetry Parnassus. The first Lao American to receive an NEA Fellowship in poetry, he has presented at the Library of Congress, Poets House, Kearny Street Workshop, the Singapore Writers Festival, and the Smithsonian. (updated 10/2023)