Bryan Thao Worra

Bryan Thao Worra (born January 1, 1973) is a Laotian American writer and poet.

Thao Worra is the first Laotian American to receive a Fellowship in Literature from the United States government's National Endowment for the Arts.

Bryan Thao Worra was born Thao Somnouk Silosoth (ທ້າວ ສອມນກຸກ ສກິລອສອທ) in Vientiane, capital of the Kingdom of Laos, on January 1, 1973, during the Laotian Civil War (1954–1975).

Thao Worra was adopted when he was three days old by an American pilot named John Worra, who flew for Royal Air Lao.

He came to the United States in July 1973.

Thao Worra's early years were spent in Missoula, Montana, Anchorage, Alaska, and Saline, Michigan.

In the 1980s, Thao Worra attended the Rudolf Steiner School of Ann Arbor, where he received a Waldorf education.

He attended Saline, Michigan public high school and graduated in 1991.

Thao Worra attended Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio from 1991 to 1997, studying communications and philosophy/religion with a focus on non-Western cultures.

Thao Worra has written creatively from an early age, but began seriously writing in 1991.

Some of his earliest writing first appeared in the Otterbein College literary magazine Quiz and Quill and the campus newspaper, the Tan and Cardinal.

He often performed in the Otterbein College Philomathean Room in Towers Hall, and at local coffee houses in Westerville.

A widely published Laotian writer, Thao Worra's work appears in over 90 publications including the Bamboo Among the Oaks anthology, the journalsWhistling Shade, Urban Pioneer, Unarmed, the Asian Pacific Journal and the Journal of the Asian American Renaissance and the anthology Outsiders Within.

Many of his latter poems are influenced by his travels abroad, especially 2002-2003 when he traveled to Asia, Europe and Egypt, and from his travels to Southeast Asian American enclaves across the United States.

He makes collections of his poetry available for free online in e-chapbooks to increase accessibility of his work to Laotian and Hmong audiences.

Thao Worra was a 2002 Minnesota Playwrights' Center Many Voices Fellow.

Thao Worra organized several public readings and exhibitions of Laotian and Asian American artists in Minnesota, including Emerging Voices (2002), The Five Senses Show (2002), Lao'd and Clear (2004), and Giant Lizard Theater (2005).

He has assisted and performed with professional storytelling groups in Minnesota.

In 2003, after visiting Laos for a literature program, Thao Worra reunited with his birth mother in Modesto, California.

Thao Worra's chapbook The Tuk-Tuk Diaries: My Dinner With Clusterbombs was printed by Unarmed Press in 2003 in a limited edition.

Sphinx House Press released Touching Detonations in the same year, exploring the issue of unexploded ordnance in Laos.

These were the first works to emerge from his first return to Laos.

His play Black Box was performed at the Sex/No Sex Festival, Ensemble Studio Theater, New York, NY in November 2006.

Thao Worra's first full-length book of speculative poetry, On The Other Side Of The Eye was released in August 2007 from Sam's Dot Publishing, based in Iowa.

Sam's Dot Publishing specializes in speculative literature.

He also assisted in the editing of the modernized theater adaptation of Phadaeng and Nang Ai, a traditional Lao/Isan Love Story by Suthasinee Srisawat in May 2007 for Bakka Magazine.

Thao Worra was an active member of the SatJaDham Lao Literary Project, working to promote the work of Laotian and Hmong artists and writers.

Winter Ink was released in December 2008 from the Minnesota Center for Book Arts.

Thao Worra's follow-up book of speculative poetry, BARROW was released by Sam's Dot Publishing in 2009.

In the summer of 2009, he released an additional book of poetry, Tanon Sai Jai based on the Lao American journey.

Tanon Sai Jai included many references to other Laotian-American writers and their books, including the work of Thavisouk Phrasavath, Phayvanh Luekhamhan, Catzie Vilayphonh of Yellow Rage, and Saymoukda Vongsay.

In 2011 he was approved as an active member of the Horror Writers Association.

He holds active membership in the Science Fiction Poetry Association.

Thao Worra's writing explores many themes including transience, identity and home.

His style is frequently experimental and draws from a variety of modern and contemporary influences, including science fiction and horror.

In interviews, he has cited numerous literary influences including Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, Samuel Beckett, H.P. Lovecraft, Larry Hama, Yusef Komunyakaa, Heather McHugh, Tadeusz Borowski, Adrienne Su, Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, Khalil Gibran, Joseph Campbell, Hermann Hesse and Shuntaro Tanikawa.

He was selected to represent Laos during the 2012 Cultural Olympiad.

Thao Worra currently resides in the Hawthorne neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and between 2012 and 2017 split his time between several cities in California, including the city of Hemet, California, Ukiah, California, Dublin, California, and Pasadena, California.

Thao Worra attended several private Lutheran elementary schools in Alaska and Michigan.

He published Demonstra, a speculative poetry collection inspired by science fiction in 2013 through Innsmouth Free Press.