The Center for East Asian Studies is hosting a campus visit by novelist Thao Thai on Friday, Oct 16.
Ms. Thai will be in Madison as part of the Wisconsin Book Festival.

Her Madison appearances will be as follows:

– Friday, Oct 16, 2 p.m., 206 Ingraham Hall, in conversation with Asian Languages and Literature Professor Nhu Truong on writing about Vietnamese heritage.

– Saturday, Oct 17, 1:30 p.m., Community Room 301 of the downtown Central Library, 201 W Mifflin St, book talk in conversation with UW–Madison’s Dorothy Puestow Draheim Professor of English Beth (Bich Minh) Nguyen on “The Seekers of Deer Creek” (2026: HarperCollins).

From the ghostly Wisconsin woods to a glittering estate in the French countryside to a sprawling ancestral home teetering on the edge of a ravine in Việt Nam, “The Seekers of Deer Creek” is a story of sisters, art, and the irresistible gravity of the past — how it endures across time and generations, always present even when buried. 

Thao Thai is also the author of “Banyan Moon,” the July 2023 Read with Jenna title, Barnes & Noble Discover Pick, and Book of the Month selection. “Banyan Moon” was selected by booksellers as an IndieNext pick and long-listed for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. She was the recipient of the 2024 Ohio Arts Council’s Individual Excellence Award, and her work has been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, WIRED, Elle, Lit Hub, and other publications. She lives in central Ohio with her husband and daughter.