Taylur Ngo

Welcome. Make yourself a cup

of tea and get comfortable.

Writer | Storyteller

I’m a writer based in Southern California where I live with my children and extended family. ​I earned a MFA in Creative Writing from San Diego State University and a BA in Theater ​and Southeast Asian Studies from UCLA. Currently, I work in marketing and teach writing ​workshops in the evening.

Love addiction. Inter generational trauma. Stories we tell ourselves. These are the ​reoccurring themes in my work. To this end, I‘m often diving into historical narratives and ​photographs of past eras for inspiration.

Photos left to right: My mother and me, Manila refugee camps, 1982 | Subject and photo credit unknown | My maternal grandmother, aka Bango, 1950’s | Subject and photocredit unknown

Selected Writing

NOVEL

”Hội An Syndrome” - in progress

Global fiction and literature

A lyrical narrative that examines a middle-aged ​Vietnamese American architect through grief in the ​event of force majeure—a global pandemic.

CREATIVE NON-FICTION

“Children In The Woods”

So we gave ourselves an origin story: that we were two kids wandering the woods at night. We have no history. We have yet to have a future. We have just now. We have our hands, one moment empty, the next moment entwined. We are safe here. To our relief, we are safe from ourselves.

CREATIVE NON-FICTION

”I Invited Over Your Ex”

Now I look into her face, the face I had imagined hundreds of times. But I see nothing. No beauty. No pain. No desire. I’ve described a woman without a face. At least, that’s the face she allows to be reflected back, while she takes in mine. By contrast, she can tell what I am about. She has only to look to see all the ways I am exposed. I am the one who wants, wants from the moment I wake up, wants coffee in a French press, wants dinner together at the end of the day, wants you to come harder every time, wants to believe. Mine is the face of a woman who is both in love and extremely child-like. Wants to believe it will be me, after all.

PROSE POEM

”The Somnambulist Journal”

At a god forsaken hour, Sleep sneaks from my pillow to finish a game of marbles on the floor. Put that away, I say. Sleep shakes its head. After a minute, Sleep loses a blue marble under my bed then crawls over to the doorway to talk to a crack of light. I shut my eyes but hear its soft lisp in the dark. I sit up. You’re stubborn you know. And selfish. Sleep throws open the door. Sleep gets a glass of tap water from the kitchen, compulsively re-arranging furniture while downstairs. A 70’s painting of owls ends up over the mantle. Sleep wants to vacuum but is afraid of waking the neighbors so settles on picking food crumbs by hand. I watch from the stairs with a Borges book in my lap. A river sweeps me along, wrote Borges, but I am the river. Soon the sun materializes and The LA Times lands on our doorstep. No one believes this happens every night, no one except my mother. My mother insists that star of anise will give Sleep a bellyache. She swears by long, hot baths. Try adding Epson salt. She says to eat before eight. Or take a butter knife from the night stand, she whispers. slit Sleep’s throat with one long sweep.

SHORT STORY

”I Am My Rooster”

fiction

A young man enters the next phase of his life with his rooster at his side.

Read the full story >>

Winner - Best of the Net, 2009

Winner - Million Writers Award, 2012

Media

Performances & Readings

Club O’Noodles - multiple spaces

Highways Performance Space - Santa Monica

Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD)

One Mic - various spaces throughout Little Saigon

San Diego Architecture Institute

San Diego State University

San Jose Stage Theater

San Francisco State University

So Say We All - mainly The Whistlestop

Thursday Night Project - East West Players courtyard

UC Irvine

UCLA

UC San Diego

University of San Diego

USC

Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association (VAALA)

Contact

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