Kao Kalia Yang is a Hmong-American writer. Born in the refugee camps of Thailand to a family that had fled the aftermath of America’s Secret War in Laos, she came to America at age six. Kao Kalia is a graduate of Carleton College and Columbia University’s MFA Program. Her books include National Endowment for the Arts Big Read title The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, and The Song Poet, which will be the first Hmong story adapted into an opera by the Minnesota Opera in the spring of 2021.