Common Read 2024-2025
The 2024-2025 Common Read graphic was created by CT State Norwalk student, Jennise Soto. Jennise is a graphic design major with an interest in digital art, books, and animation. She plans to graduate to a 4-year college to earn her bachelor’s degree.
CT State Norwalk’s Common Read Program’s mission is to provide first-year students with a shared, enjoyable, academic experience that introduces them to an educational community where intellectual discourse is fostered and valued.
The 2024-2025 Common Read selection is Ocean Vuong’s Time is a Mother.
Author Biography
Writer, professor, and photographer, Ocean Vuong is the author of On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, winner of the American Book Award, The Mark Twain Award, and The New England Book Award. The novel debuted for six weeks on The New York Times bestseller list and has since sold more than a million copies in 40 languages. A nominee for the National Book Award and a recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Grant, he is also the author of the poetry collections, Time is a Mother, a finalist for the Griffin prize, and Night Sky with Exit Wounds, a New York Times Top 10 Book, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Whiting Award, the Thom Gunn Award. A Ruth Lilly fellow from the Poetry Foundation, his honors include fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, The Elizabeth George Foundation, The Academy of American Poets, and the Pushcart Prize.
Selected by Foreign Policy magazine as one of its 100 Leading Global Thinkers, Vuong’s writings have been featured in The Atlantic, Granta, Harpers, The Nation, New Republic, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review, The Village Voice, and American Poetry Review, which awarded him the Stanley Kunitz Prize for Younger Poets.
Born in Saigon, Vietnam and raised in Hartford, Connecticut in a working class family of nail salon and factory laborers, he was educated at nearby Manchester Community College before transferring to Pace University to study International Marketing. Without completing his first term, he dropped out and enrolled at Brooklyn College, where he graduated with a BA in Nineteenth Century American Literature. He subsequently received his MFA in Poetry from NYU.
He currently splits his time between Northampton, Massachusetts and New York City, where he serves as a Professor in Modern Poetry and Poetics in the MFA Program at NYU.
Spring 2025 Common Read Week: March 4th-5th
Join us for several shared learning experiences as we explore the themes highlighted in Ocean Vuong’s Time is a Mother. Events are open to all students and the community. We hope to see you there!
Time: 8:00AM
Event Title: Time for Trivia!
Description: It’s time for trivia! Team up with two or more friends and put your Ocean Vuong and Time is a Mother knowledge to the test. Join us for an exciting competition against fellow students, answer engaging book-related questions, and compete for a chance to win a gift card!
Location: GENRE Forum
Time: 9:30AM
Event Title: Collaborative Poetry Slam
Description: Join us for a dynamic, interactive event where student poets will work together in teams to create original poetry. This event emphasizes teamwork, creativity, and synergy. Participants collaborate to blend their voices, styles, and perspectives into a unified piece of art.
Location: E230 and Virtual
Time: 11:00AM
Event Title: “Nailed It” Documentary Screening
Description: “Nailed It” chronicles the genesis and legacy of the 40 year Vietnamese nail salon and its influence on an $8 billion-dollar American industry.
Location: GENRE Forum
Time: 12:30PM
Event Title: Loss, Grief and Bereavement
Description: This workshop will focus on many types of separation and loss, including but not limited to death, divorce, retirement and identity. The cognitive and emotional response to these experiences will also be a focus of the presentation.
Location: E230
Time: 2:00PM
Event Title: One “Neo/Nail” at a Time: How Vietnamese Refugees and Immigrants Rebuild Lives in the Aftermath of War and Displacement
Description: In the wake of war, post-war displacement, and international migration, many Vietnamese refugees and immigrants have managed to rebuild their lives through a surprising path—the nail salon. This presentation traces the genesis and impacts of the Vietnamese nail salon industry across the US and beyond. It centers the stories of Vietnamese women and men, whose labor, innovations, dignity, and sacrifices have built and sustained families and communities across borders, making many dreams possible. In conversation with Ocean Vuong’s “Amazon History of a Former Nail Salon Worker,” this presentation is an ode to the nail-salon workers in the Vietnamese diaspora.
Location: Virtual
Meeting Number: 2633 191 0676
Password: CommonRead25
Time: 4:00PM
Event Title: Exploring LGBTQ+ Identities & Allyship
Description: This interactive session will engage students in a thorough overview of the LGBTQ+ community, from terms and definitions to exploring how social norms and expectations about gender and sexuality affect each of us, including how other intersecting identities such as race and ethnicity, culture, language, and more come into play. Students will have the opportunity to reflect on how their own backgrounds and experiences impact how they show up in the world, particularly in how inclusion and affirmation help all of us as individuals and communities – whether we are allies or members of the LGBTQ+ community ourselves.
Location: E230
Time: 5:15PM
Event Title: Exploring LGBTQ+ Identities & Allyship
Description: This interactive session will engage students in a thorough overview of the LGBTQ+ community, from terms and definitions to exploring how social norms and expectations about gender and sexuality affect each of us, including how other intersecting identities such as race and ethnicity, culture, language, and more come into play. Students will have the opportunity to reflect on how their own backgrounds and experiences impact how they show up in the world, particularly in how inclusion and affirmation help all of us as individuals and communities – whether we are allies or members of the LGBTQ+ community ourselves.
Location: E230
Time: 8:00AM
Event Title: Time for Trivia!
Description: It’s time for trivia! Team up with two or more friends and put your Ocean Vuong and Time is a Mother knowledge to the test. Join us for an exciting competition against fellow students, answer engaging book-related questions, and compete for a chance to win a gift card!
Location: GENRE Forum
Time: 9:30AM
Event Title: Flavors of Vietnam
Description: Join us for a culinary journey through Vietnam’s vibrant and diverse flavors! Learn about the cultural significance of some traditional Vietnamese foods while enjoying the rich, aromatic tastes that make Vietnamese cuisine so unique.
Location: Culinary Arts Dining Room (W121)
Time: 11:00AM
Event Title: The Poetics and Politics of Vietnamese Cinema
Description: This talk maps out a resilient and longstanding Vietnamese film history, which has survived times of war and extreme deprivation to economic revival and censorship.
Location: GENRE Forum and Virtual
Time: 12:30PM
Event Title: Flavors of Vietnam
Description: Join us for a culinary journey through Vietnam’s vibrant and diverse flavors! Learn about the cultural significance of some traditional Vietnamese foods while enjoying the rich, aromatic tastes that make Vietnamese cuisine so unique.
Location: Culinary Arts Dining Room (W121)
Time: 7:00PM
Event Title: “Nailed It” Documentary Screening
Description: “Nailed It” chronicles the genesis and legacy of the 40 year Vietnamese nail salon and its influence on an $8 billion-dollar American industry.
Location: W105