Bruce Gregory
Audio By Carbonatix
A new literary festival is coming to Dallas this week.
The Foreword Literary Festival will illuminate queer Vietnamese American writers and literature with four days of workshops, readings and conversations. Four Palaces Publishing is launching the event Oct. 8-11, with award-winning authors Truong Tran and Andrew Lam set to headline. All programming is free — a move organizers prioritized to minimize barriers for minority writers.
“ It was always about addressing that inequity in the literary world, especially for [Black, Indigenous, and people of color] and queer people,” Four Palaces executive director Frederick Tran told the Observer. “I wanted to make sure that any programming that we do — that cost is not a barrier for people because it really doesn’t need to be.”
Four Palaces Publishing was founded in early 2021 to uplift writers from minority communities and overcome the inequality that persists in the publishing industry. That mission is at the heart of the Foreward Festival’s programming.
San Francisco-based featured authors will lead sessions in Dallas and Arlington during the festival. The literary adventure kicks off Wednesday, Oct. 8 at the University of Texas at Arlington with readings from educator Truong, and essayist Lam, whose work delves into migration, memory and identity.
“I hope that some young person might attend this festival and discover their love, but also their need for language and the written word, and that they will aspire to write a book or two, or [a] lifetime of words,” Truong, 56, says.
Day two activities are reserved for students and invited guests, while programming open to the public resumes the following day at The Wild Detectives in Dallas. The evening of readings and conversation centering queerness, cultural identity and migration is capped at 50 guests. The festival wraps up Saturday, Oct. 11, with a two-hour personal essay workshop led by 62-year-old Lam at Apprentice Creative Space. The session offers new and veteran writers the chance to expand their intimate storytelling skills.
“I’d love for those curious about the immigrant story to come and hear stories of immigrants and love and [loss],” Lam says. “I’d love for the Vietnamese American community in Dallas, in particular, to come and share in our storytelling. I’d love to explore the complex queer narrative in immigrant [communities], issues related to shame and longing. I’d love to help those interested in finding their voice and to write to think about how to shape and tell their stories.”
The festival also marks the launch of Four Palaces Publishing’s debut nonfiction anthology, When Home Hurts: Solastalgia. The book compiles pieces from 13 first-time published authors who navigate themes of environmental change, displacement and identity. In the early 2000s, environmental philosopher Glenn Albrecht coined the term solastalgia to describe the trauma or longing that follows negative environmental change, such as severe weather events, fire and impacts of climate change. The book exemplifies the mission of Four Palaces and the festival overall in providing writers with tools and a platform to tell their stories.
“ If one person is able to walk away from this festival with maybe a writing medium they’ve never considered before and that they’re now interested in, or they walk away with a rough first draft of a piece that they can expand on later, then I have done my job,” Tran says.
Registration is free, but space is limited. More information is available online.
