Introducing the 2021 IALA Mentees for the first of its kind mentorship program
IALA celebrates eleven writers selected for the inaugural session of our mentorship program, which will run from July 5th through August 30th, 2021. We received many applications from around the world, and are excited to welcome writers from Armenia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Lebanon, writing novels, short stories, poetry, creative nonfiction and longform journalism.
The application period for our 2021 mentorship program is closed. Please sign-up for our emails to learn when the 2022 application period will open.
Araxie Cass is an Armenian-American writer and editor. Her work explores themes of culture, social issues, and the ambiguities of life in multiple identities. She is the editor-in-chief of Azad Archives, a new Armenian platform and safe-space dedicated to starting critical conversations and connecting the global Armenian community. Her work has been published in the Armenian Weekly, Blacklight Magazine, the Hye-Phen Magazine, and others.
Perla Kantarjian is a Lebanese-Armenian writer, editor, journalist, and literature instructor based in Beirut. Her work has appeared in over twenty-five publications, including International Literary Quarterly, Harpy Hybrid Review, and Rebelle Society. She also content-writes for Bookstr, copy-writes for Black Lemon, is a submissions reader for Rusted Radishes, and teaches English Literature at the International College. Formerly, Kantarjian was the executive editor of Carpe Diem, the literary segment of Annahar English. She is currently working on her debut poetry collection.
Tatevik Ayvazyan is the director of the Armenian Institute in London, an arts and culture charity and a literary producer and writer, associated with Rebel Republic Films. Born in Yerevan, Tatevik has lived in the UK over 20 years, working in filmmaking, screenwriting, and programme curating. She has curated, edited and translated the Armenian and English poetry in Rebel Republic Film’s multi-award-winning arthouse film, ”Taniel”. She is currently adapting Iris Murdoch’s ”The Italian Girl”, a dark tale of a dysfunctional family, which has been optioned by Rebel Republic Films, and also working on an upcoming documentary about female DJs.
Elise Youssoufian is a US-born Armenian poet, artist, scholar and therapeutic musician with a world-shaped heart. A poet in secret since childhood, she now writes reflections for the Armenian Weekly column, “Walking and Asking,” rooted in restorative justice and collective trauma healing. Her works can also be found in HyeBred, Fools Fables and Kooyrigs’ forthcoming Looys: Voices of Resistance in Verse. Whether crafting ancestral needlelace or her first book of poetry, as the granddaughter of genocide survivors and daughter of orphaned immigrants, Elise is fueled by solidarity with all who are targeted, and by the belief another world is possible.
Sophia Armen is an organizer, scholar, and poet, born and raised in Los Angeles, building in the intersections of racial and gender justice. She serves as the Co-Director of the Armenian-American Action Network and The Feminist Front. Her work has been featured in The Los Angeles Times, Armenian Weekly, Mondoweiss, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Hye-Phen Magazine and The Electronic Intifada. She loves growing vegetables and the color red.
Lilit Markosian is a freelance writer based in New York City and Yerevan. While she began her writing career in the advertising industry, she’s gradually shifted her focus to nonfiction and journalism, reporting primarily on art, history, and current events in the Eastern Bloc. In 2018, Lilit was accepted to Tony Tulathimutte’s rigorous CRIT workshop in Brooklyn. She completed her bachelor’s degree at Columbia University, where she received the Dean’s Prize for Creative Writing.
Elizabeth Mkhitarian, born in Fresno, California, and raised in Los Angeles, is a published writer in both poetry and prose. She found solace in language while working for non profits in South Africa, Germany, China, and Lebanon in her early 20s, alongside communities of refugees and asylum seekers. She is now back in Los Angeles, writing and publishing in Armenian and English, while raising her beagle Lando.
Nayiri Baboudjian Bouchakjian grew up in Lebanon witnessing the civil war, countless assassinations, and explosions that still happen. She is an educator at heart and has been teaching English Language and Literature for the past 18 years at the University of Balamand, Lebanon. She loves working with teenagers, empowering them and coaching them to become better versions of themselves. Writing is also very close to her heart; tired of writing to herself, she started sharing her writing with others after the Beirut Port Blasts. She is currently working on her memoir which includes stories about growing up in a multiple trauma land, being a caregiver to both her parents and taboo issues associated with body image and mental health. She has edited two books and is currently working on the third one, along with some translation projects.
Peter Hajinian is a writer working mainly in the world of advertising. His works of fiction draw on influences as disparate as ancient Near Eastern history, website banner advertisements and old man jokes to shape rollicking, engaging and lightly absurdist stories that play with structure and form. He is a member of the Armenian Numismatics & Antiquities Society, and co-host of “Podmootiun”, an Armenian history podcast. He is currently working on a novel about Armenian-American identity and Armenian history. He lives and writes in Minneapolis, Minnesota with his wife and sons.
Arthur Kayzakian is a poet, editor and educator who lives in California. He was born in Tehran, Iran. His family fled to London to escape the Iranian Revolution. He earned his MFA from San Diego State University. He is a contributing editor at Poetry International. His chapbook, My Burning City, was a finalist for the Locked Horn Press Chapbook Prize, Two Sylvias Press Chapbook Prize, and the C.D. Wright Prize. His poems and translations have appeared in or are forthcoming from several publications including Taos Journal of International Poetry & Art, COUNTERCLOCK, Chicago Review, Locked Horn Press and Prairie Schooner.
Nyree Abrahamian is a writer and educational consultant who works in the spaces where practical and whimsical collide. She designs innovative educational programs and writes for humanitarian organizations such as UNICEF and the HALO Trust to amplify their impact. Nyree is an adjunct instructor at the American University of Armenia, where she teaches a foundational communications and civics course. She writes essays and is currently working on her first poetry collection, which centers around the aftermath of the war in Artsakh. Nyree holds a B.A. in English from York University and an Ed.M. in International Educational Policy from Harvard University. Born and raised in Toronto, she lives in Yerevan with her husband and two children.