Recognition
In 2021, the Association of Writers and Poets selected me to be part of their Writer to Writer mentorship program. My mentor was Lara Lillibridge.
In 2022, Lambdba Literary selected me as a Lambda Literary Fellow.
Published or forthcoming
“The Minnesota LGBTQ Standards of Inclusion for Health and Social Services” in The Routledge Handbook of LGBTQIA Administration and Policy edited by Wallace Swan (Routledge, 2018)
“The Words You Can’t Find in the Dictionary” in the anthology The Sun Isn’t Out Long Enough edited by Tatevik Sargsyan (Anamot Press, 2021).
“A Literary Moment or Literary Movement?” in the Armenian Institute’s digital Celebrating Pride series (June 2021)
“The Words” in We are All Armenian: Voices from the Diaspora edited by Aram Mrjoian (University of Texas Press, 2023)
“Naming Names” in Emerge: 2022 Lambda Literary Fellows Anthology edited by Shelby Pinkham (Lambda Literary, 2023)
Current Projects
A Home at the Beginning of the World
This book will be the first essay collection from a Queer Armenian American writer and a necessary contribution to American LGBT literature. Here is the lived experience of the underreported and kaleidoscopic landscape of Queer Armenian American life, represented in personal essays, narrative nonfiction, profiles of Queer Armenians, and even a comedy special. In at attempt to find “home,” the book realizes that home is more than just place or roots. It is as much the languages we speak and don’t speak. The land we live on and and the land we have never lived on. The history we know and and the history we don’t know. The jokes we can tell and those we can’t tell.
The essay subjects range from the assassination of the leader of the Armenian Genocide, the tender intimacy of our names, journalistic profiles of Queer Armenians leading LGBT organizations, the hidden queer love letters of a prominent Armenian poet, writing a comedy special while giving up a career as a Chief Diversity Officer, hosting a queer book podcast, and creating the Queer Armenian Library, the world’s first library devoted to literature by and about Queer Armenians. The titular essay is the polyamorous love story of my twelve-year (and counting) thruple, set against the backdrop of Michael Cunningham’s novel A Home at the End of the World. This book is a meditation on creating home in the queer diaspora.
Towards All The Winds of the Coming Days
In this novel, the fates of Margo and Tigran collide at a family reunion. Over the course of the weekend, as Margo preoccupies herself with planning the food, decorations, and activities, a flood of remembrances cascade around her: the choice of her husband, the loss of her lover, and the tragedy that led to both. Meanwhile, Tigran busies himself with “future memories,” choosing what he will remember into and from the future, as he and his two partners (a thruple of two years) prepare to attend the reunion. But once there, a surprise guest unwittingly reveals a truth which forces Margo to confront the memory of the woman she may have killed and also threatens to topple the careful future Tigran was building for himself.