John Nguyen

John Ngoc Nguyen is a poet and writer from St. Paul’s East Side. A first-gen graduate of Yale University and a Harding Knight, Nguyen composes essays, reportage, and poetry, and his work appears in The New York Times, The Minnesota Star Tribune, Midstory, VietQ, and The New Journal. He has served as the marketing intern at Copper Canyon Press and a screener for Alice James Books. A 2024-25 U.S. Fulbright Scholar in Vietnam, he is passionate about Southeast Asian storytelling in the diaspora and homeland. On his back burner are a collection of essays, What You Gamble on after the End: A Vietnamese Memoir Across Three Continents, and a book of poems, Advice for the Newly Initiated. Nguyen loves to be present on both sides of the Mississippi, at spots including the Loft, MN8, Against the Current, Magers & Quinn, and TruArtSpeaks’s Re-Verb Open Mic.