What does it mean to honor your parents’ legacy while they are still here?

Returning as a guest on my show for the first time since 2020, singer/songwriter, filmmaker, and creative TRACE chatted with me about preparing the upcoming Saigon Jazz Revival with her mom, Carol Kim, a legendary Vietnamese singer known in the Vietnamese music scene for decades. We talk about the anticipation for the Saigon Jazz Revival, partnered with the Vietnamese Association of Illinois (VAI), that’s coming to Chicago on Sat, August 29th at Live Bash. TRACE goes into the process of working with her mom and collaborating with the New Orleans jazz ensemble. She shares more about her relationship with her mom while finding ways to honor her mom’s legacy in the Vietnamese community. I got to chat with her about TRACE’s own music and filmmaking, and so much more!

If you’re in the Chicago area, please get your tickets now to the Saigon Jazz Revival below.

Purchase your tickets to the Chicago Saigon Jazz Revival here

BIO:

Trace is a second-generation Vietnamese American artist and writer who has spent the last decade in Los Angeles immersed in the music industry. Since 2016, resonating with themes of longing, belonging, and queerness, her music has reached over 84 million streams, including major-label releases and a partnership with NAMI to spotlight mental health.Her love for storytelling naturally evolved into filmmaking, showcased by her semi-autobiographical debut short film, No More Sad Songs, which premiered in the fall of 2024. Trace's second short, Cry, Baby, premiered this past August in anticipation of its 2026 festival circuit run. In the meantime, she is developing a documentary about her mother and, in tandem, writing her debut semi-autobiographical memoir.

IG: TRACE

Website: https://listentotrace.com/

Information about the Vietnamese Association of Illinois (VAI):

• IG: vai_chicago

• VAI Website

For this week’s episode, I sit down with author and television executive Nayantara Roy to discuss her new second novel, Sisters of a Halved Heart. We go in-depth into the chaotic nature of sibling relationships, what it takes to balance high-level TV development and fiction writing, and the art of telling stories across different mediums.

IG: tararoi

Website: https://nayantararoy.com/

Bio:Nayantara Roy (also known as Tara Roy) is an author and television executive. By day, she serves as the Senior Vice President of Television at Sandbox Entertainment (and previously worked at Endeavor Content and AGBO), where she acquires and oversees the creative development of original scripted television series.As an author, she wrote the highly acclaimed debut novel The Magnificent Ruins (2024), which was named a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice, a Washington Post Notable/Best Book, a People Magazine Best Book, and a Gold House Book Club Pick. Her second novel, Sisters of a Halved Heart, was published by Algonquin Books on June 2, 2026.Additionally, Roy won the Rick DeMarinis Short Story Prize in 2018 for her short story "8C," and her plays have been performed internationally, including in the UK and India. She is a 2020 alumna of the CAPE Leaders Program and a jury member for the STARZ #TakeTheLead director's program. Born in Kolkata, India, she currently resides in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, California.

What do your own stories help you learn about yourself?

I brought on Jitesh Jaggi, a 5x winner of The Moth, veteran storytelling coach currently based in Chicago who immigrated from India, to explore the events in his life that shaped his storytelling and how he works with the South Asian communities to share their oral history and stories. We get into the challenges of the Chicago storytelling scene and how inaccessible it remains for people of color. We go into depth about what it takes to become an authentic storyteller.

Bio:

Jitesh Jaggi is an immigrant storyteller, educator, and oral historian from India. A five-time The Moth Story Slam winner, his stories were recently played on NPR’s The Moth Radio Hour and on WGN TV’s Day Time Chicago Show. As a storytelling coach, he has taught workshops for the World Health Organization and the University of Chicago, among others. Jitesh’s one-man show “Suitcase Stories” played at the Steppenwolf Theatre and The Second City. Jitesh was a keynote speaker at the International Educators’ Conference- NAFSA and a panelist at the AWP (American Writers’ Program). As an Oral Historian, he collects the stories of the South Asian diaspora living in Illinois since the 1950s and often weaves his own personal tales with those of his immigrant ancestors in his performances. He will share these amalgamated stories as an Illinois Road Scholar for 2026-27.

https://ilhumanities.org/speakers/jitesh-jaggi

IG: the_pun_dit