Author Brian Leung visits UW to speak about his novel based on 1885 "Chinese Massacre" in Rock Springs

From a UW press release:

Acclaimed author Brian Leung will visit the University of Wyoming Wednesday, Oct. 24, and Thursday, Oct. 25, for a reading of his work and campus visits.

His campus visit is sponsored by the UW MFA Program in Creative Writing, University Libraries, American Heritage Center and Multicultural Affairs.

Leung will give a free public reading at 7 p.m. Oct. 25, in William Robertson Coe Library, Room 506. A book sale and signing of his latest novel “Take Me Home” follows his presentation. A reception also is planned.

The book presents a fictionalized version of the “Chinese Massacre”-- the riot and killings of Chinese miners -- that occurred in Rock Springs in 1885. Leung conducted much of the research for his novel at the UW American Heritage Center and Coe Library.

Interested students and staff can meet with Leung Oct. 24, in the Wyoming Union’s Rainbow Resource Center (RRC) and the Multicultural Resource Center (MRC). The RRC will host an hour-long reception at 10:30 a.m. From noon- 1 p.m., the MRC will have a question-and-answer luncheon with Leung about his latest novel.

He also will visit with writing students in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at noon Oct. 25.

Leung was born and raised in California’s San Diego County -- a somewhat unlikely location, given that his mother was born in Battleground, Wash., and his father escaped from China in 1949. By coincidence, as a teenager in 1980, Leung took a train trip to visit relatives in Rock Springs -- the very town at the core of his “Take Me Home” novel, which won the Willa Award for Historical Fiction.

Leung’s other works of fiction, nonfiction and poetry have appeared in multiple magazines and reviews. His “World Famous Love Acts” won the Asian American Literary Award in 2005 and the Mary McCarthy Award for Short Fiction in 2002. He also has published another novel, “Lost Men.”

Leung’s short fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction have appeared in Indiana Review, Runes, Crazyhorse, The Connecticut Review, Gulf Stream, Mid-American Review and numerous other publications. Leung recently was the recipient of the Lambda Literary Foundation Mid-Career Novelist Award.

Since 2000, he has taught in Cincinnati and Los Angeles, and currently is a University of Louisville associate professor. Leung earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from California State University, and an M.F.A from Indiana University.

More information about Leung can be found at http://www.readbrianleung.com/.

For more information about his campus visit, call the MFA Program in Creative Writing at (307) 766-6453.

Photo: Brian Leung