Kao Kalia Yang is a Twin Cities-based, Hmong American teacher, speaker, and writer. She is the award-winning author of the memoirs The Latehomecomer, The Song Poet, Somewhere in the Unknown World, and Where Rivers Part. Yang co-edited the groundbreaking book What God is Honored Here?: Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss By and For Native Women and Women of Color. She is a librettist for The Song Poet opera, commissioned by Minnesota Opera. 

Yang’s work has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, a recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and garnered seven Minnesota Book Awards. She is Star Tribune’s 2024 Artist of the Year. Yang holds an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Carleton College. She is a McKnight, Soros, and Guggenheim fellow.