Introducing the Mentees of the 2024 IALA Mentorship Program
IALA is excited to welcome its new class of mentees for the fourth annual mentorship program, which will run until August 31st, 2024, working on fiction, poetry, nonfiction and literary translation!
The application period for our 2024 mentorship program is closed. Please subscribe to our newsletter for future updates.
Elina Arbo is an artist, urbanist, and technologist who is interested in converging the boundaries between electronic sound production and poetry. She is originally from Southfield, Michigan, and is currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Her written work is concerned with space, time, and culture, and is heavily influenced by her Assyrian heritage. Elina is a member of the Armenian Record Archive and is a 2023 Tanfis Resident Artist at Remix Culture. She studied at Columbia University and has a B.A. in Urban Studies and Middle Eastern Studies.
Lena Dakessian Halteh is a San Francisco-based writer and multidisciplinary artist. Lena earned her B.A. in English Literature and Art History from UC Berkeley and later returned to pursue her Master’s Degree from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. In 2017, she launched Pom + Peacock, a whimsical illustration brand inspired by Armenian folk heritage. Her storytelling is rooted in Armenian culture and identity, motherhood and nearly two decades of performing with ARAX Dance. Along with mothering, Lena continues to pursue projects in narrative nonfiction, fiction and children’s storytelling, along with the expansion of her illustration and fine art brands.
Hasmik Djoulakian (she/her) is a first-generation Armenian educator, writer, and organizer. She is currently a graduate student at UC Berkeley where she does interdisciplinary research on food sovereignty and food as cultural heritage in Armenia. She has worked in domestic and sexual violence education and advocacy, and has a background in Gender Studies. During the years that she lived in Armenia, she was involved in teaching, mycology research, advocacy, and fundraising. In her work and writing, she is committed to transnational feminist anti-colonial solidarities.
Astghik Hairapetian is an attorney focusing on immigrants’ rights and human rights. She has a B.A. from the University of British Columbia in Spanish and International Relations, and a J.D. from the UCLA School of Law with specializations in Critical Race Studies and International & Comparative Law. She is based in Los Angeles.
Garinè Isassi is a recovering journalist and author of the award–winning novel Start with the Backbeat. Additional publications include the weekly humor column, Mom in the Middle; the anthologies, This is What America Looks Like and Grace in Love; and Gargoyle Online. In 2022, she won a Grant from the Arts & Humanities Council of Montgomery County and was accepted into the George Washington University JMM Writing Workshop. She currently lives in Maryland, where she works full-time in marketing communications. She is the Gaithersburg Book Festival Adult Workshops Chair and on the organizing committee of the Washington Writers Conference.
Born in Yerevan, Armenia, Shushanik Karapetyan is a New York based writer, artist and psychotherapist. Among her unfavorable activities is writing short biography statements. Among her favorite activities are watching people in cafes, inventing stories about their lives, their day, what their relationship is like with whoever they’re with or with themselves. She enjoys accurately predicting the ending of movies, finding who committed the murder, and knowing which character blending into the background is going to turn out to be important. Even more, she enjoys not knowing the answer to any of these.
Aleen Markarid Khachatourian is a multi-media Armenian artist based in Los Angeles. Her work comes through in visuals, sound, vocal activations, writing, movement and installations. She spends time studying human existence and is fascinated by our innate interconnectedness. The unwavering objective of her practice is anchoring the vision of alternative paradigms as we shift into new ways of being. Learn more at www.aleenkhachatourian.com
Susanna Khachatryan is a writer and poet who was born in Yerevan, Armenia and is now based in New York City. She received her B.A. from the University of Florida and is currently a J.D. candidate. Her poetry has been in Split Pomegranate – Sacred Seeds, a zine aimed towards raising funds for those affected by displacement from Artsakh. She is interested in themes of girlhood, otherness, diasporic identity, and surrealism.
Norayr Manvelyan (b. 2000, Yerevan, Armenia) is a translator working with Armenian as his native language, English and Russian. He received a BA degree in English and Communications from the American University of Armenia and currently studies in the Graduate Certificate in Translation Program at AUA under the mentorship of Shushan Avagyan. Through his work, Manvelyan strives to bridge seemingly distant cultures and languages, thus enriching both by introducing unique language thinking within the languages and forms of expression in literary language. Manvelyan also writes poetry and short stories in Armenian.
Danielle Mikaelian is a graduate of Columbia University with a BA in English Literature. At Columbia, Danielle was President of the Columbia Armenian Society and served as Editor-in-Chief of Columbia’s Women in Law and Politics Journal. Danielle’s poems have been published in The Armenian Weekly and HyeBred Magazine. Danielle Mikaelian is currently a student at Harvard Law School, where she acts as Co-President of the Harvard Armenian Law Students Association and the Executive Vice President of Operations for the Harvard Association for Law and Business. She plans to move to New York upon graduation.
Amara Possian was born into a family of Armenian genocide survivors, journalists, and artists. She lives in Toronto, in a house filled with grief, artifacts—some absurd, some very significant—, and unfinished business, but with no clear instructions or people to guide the way. As a community organizer, she moves people to action through stories, helping them connect their lived experiences to the broken systems that need to change. She has trained and coached thousands of activists around the world and leads the Canada team at the global climate movement organization 350.org.
Lori Yeghiayan Friedman is a first generation Armenian American from Los Angeles, California. Hermost recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Mizna, Atlas and Alice, Longleaf Review, Lost Balloon, Pithead Chapel, Memoir Land and the Los Angeles Times. Her creative nonfiction has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She earned an MFA in Theatre from UC San Diego and attended the Tin House Winter Workshop 2023. Follow her on X/Twitter, Instagram and Bluesky: @loriyeg
Melineh Yemenidjian is a lifelong poet and studied poetry at California State University of Long Beach. Melineh lives in Los Angeles, CA with her husband and two sons. She is a writer, singer, and artist. She has participated in workshops hosted by Cecilia Wolloch, Elline Lipkin, and Donny Jackson. Her poetry has appeared on public television and in Armenian Weekly, 99andcounting, VoiceCatcher, and multiple spotlights in h-pem, an Armenian Cultural Platform. Her poetic inspirations include Rumi, Mary Oliver, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe, e.e. Cummings, Khalil Gibran, Hovannes Toumanian, and Sayat Nova.
