Meet IALA’s 2024 Creative Writing Grant Recipient and Runner Up
We would like to thank everyone who submitted their work to IALA’s 2024 Creative Writing Grant. This was our third year offering the grant, and we were grateful for the submissions we received. We’re fortunate to have read from so many wide-ranging works from a diverse array of applicants.
This year’s grant was for creative nonfiction. We are very pleased to announce that, from the submissions received, the judges have awarded the grant to Lori Yeghiayan Friedman for her work-in-progress, How to Survive a Genocide. Lori will receive a $2,500 grant to complete her memoir-in-essays.
Lori Yeghiayan Friedman is an Armenian-American from Los Angeles. Her father was an Armenian from Ethiopia and her mother an Armenian from Palestine. She holds an MFA in Theatre from the University of California San Diego and much of her writing explores themes of performance and the roles we play. Lori’s work has been published in numerous literary magazines and other outlets including: Mizna, Consequence Forum, phoebe, Longleaf Review, Memoir Land and the Los Angeles Times. Her piece, “The Emperor’s Dentist,” was recently nominated for Best of the Net by the journal Atlas and Alice. And her essay “How to Survive a Genocide,” published in Exposition Review, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. You can find highlights of her work on her Linktree, and connect with her via Instagram @loriyeg and Bluesky @loriyeg.bsky.social.
According to this year’s judges, Susan Barba, Aram Mrjoian and Nadia Owusu, Lori’s application clearly demonstrated literary excellence and creative vision. They reported that her writing sample, “Here’s Looking for You,” a personal essay on the writer’s search for her father as an Ethiopian Armenian immigrant who died in her youth from a heart condition, via his favorite film Casablanca, felt precise and full of life. The voice was consistent, steady and sure while taking the reader on a voyage of discovery, acknowledging that some people are always unknown, prompting layered, sophisticated questions about identity. The judges were impressed with how far Lori had come as a writer since 2017. They were confident in her passion and promise to publish her memoir in essays, How to Survive a Genocide, in her words, “an exploration of the impacts of my family’s experiences––as refugees, as survivors, as immigrants––on the formation of my identity, centering on the enduring consequences of genocide, and depicting both the privileges and the costs of belonging in America.”
This year, the judges decided to also name a runner up, an applicant who holds great promise: Sarah Elgatian.
Sarah Elgatian is a mixed-identity writer whose cross-genre work has appeared in or is forthcoming from journals including Beholder Magazine, the Iowa Writers’ House print anthology We The Interwoven, and BRINK Literary. A grandchild of genocide survivors, Sarah is involved with community organizing and works at the Midwest Writing Center where she works to make creative writing accessible and enjoyable. She likes bright colors, dark coffee, loud music, and long sentences. She dislikes meanness and corporate farming. You can connect with her via Instagram @rahelgatian.
Sarah submitted work from her series of hybrid essays that explore her mixed-identity, incorporating experiences as the grandchild of genocide survivors and her family’s working poor/ working class background to narrate the fissures of identity.
The judges found Sarah’s writing to be inventive and lyrical, demonstrating curiosity, compassion, and attentiveness when writing about other people. They found her experiments with form complicated and enlarged her narrative, demonstrating vision and originality. They saw her as a writer willing to take risks and look forward to reading more from her in the years to come.
We thank everyone for their submission, and our judges Susan Barba, Aram Mrjoian and Nadia Owusu for their invaluable time.
The International Armenian Literary Alliance’s Creative Writing Grant awards $2,500 annually to one Armenian writer whose work-in-progress shows exceptional literary and creative ability. In 2024, the grant was awarded for creative nonfiction. Learn more about the grant, and meet our 2024 Israelyan Armenian Translation Grant and 2024 Israelyan English Translation Grant recipients.