“The Tiger’s Child,” a screenplay written by poet and Fresno State alumnus Burlee Vang and his brother Abel Vang has won an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 2011 Don and Gee Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting.
Theirs was one of five winning screenplays selected from the 6,730 manuscripts submitted in the program, which awards $30,000 the winners, the first installment of which is distributed at a Nov. 3 dinner in Beverly Hills.
The one-year fellowships allow screenplays to be completed so they can be marketed commercially by the writers.
Vang is a product of the Master of Fine in Arts Creative Writing Program at Fresno State. His poetry has been published in numerous journals nationwide and he also is the author of “The Dead I Know: Incantation for Rebirth,” published in 2010 by Swan Scythe Press.
Most recently, he was co-editor of “How Do I Begin? A Hmong-American Literary Anthology” (Heyday, 2011). Vang is a founding member of the Hmong-American American Writers Circle, which encourages emerging Hmong writers in the San Joaquin Valley.
The screenplay is about an orphaned 12-year-old boy’s decision about whether he will accept the risk of following his father into a secret army so he can provide for his 5-year-old brother.
For more information, visit http://www.oscars.org/press/pressreleases/2011/20111018.html
Vang’s website is http://burleevang.com/.
