Katie Prout is a runner, writer, and storyteller. Katie Prout received her BA from Kalamazoo College and her MFA from the University of Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing Program. Her writing has appeared in Longreads, Lit Hub, and other publications. In 2017, her micro chapbook Liner Notes was published with Ghost City Press. She is currently at work on a book about addiction, football, and ghosts.
MEET WRITE IN ARMENIA FACULTY
Alisa GANIEVA– a Russian fiction writer and essayist. Finalist of the Russian Booker, and the Yasnaya Polyana. Winner of the 2009 Debut Prize. Juror for Neustadt International Prize for Literature or “the American Nobel”. Lecturer at the King’s College (UK), the Grinnell College (US) and at different programs like the BTL in Iowa (2015, 2017) or the CWS school in Moscow (2017-18). In June 2015 Ganieva was listed by The Guardian as one of the most talented and influential young people living in Moscow.
Armen of Armenia (Armen Ohanyan) is a fiction writer and essayist. He is the President of PEN Armenia Center since 2017. He is known for his short story collection The Return of Kikos, published in 2013. His short story Who Wants to Be a Millionaire appears in 2015 edition of Best European Fiction collection by Dalkey Archive Press. His writing is significantly influenced by his political activism. In 2015 he has participated at City of Asylum Writer Residency program in Pittsburg, PA, USA as well as the Fall Residency at the widely acclaimed International Writers’ Project at the University of IOWA at Iowa City, IA, USA.
Aram Pachyan is an acclaimed writer of new generation, with several awards and prizes, including the honorable Presidential Prize for Literature. His first novel Goodbye, Bird has become a national bestseller in 2012 and is still in the top lists of bestselling literature. Currently he is a journalist and columnist at Hraparak newspaper. The play I am a vegetarian was staged recently based on his novel Goodbye, Bird and a musical piece Pachyan Frangments by composer Aram Hovhannisyan, based on Pachyan’s flash fiction book, was written and performed in the US in 2015.
Dato Turashvili studied literature, film and art history at Tbilisi, London and Madrid Universities, as well as film dramaturgy at Screenplay Atelier of Erlom Akhvlediani. He writes novels, short stories and plays as well as translates both prose and poetry from Russian, Spanish and English. His novel Flight from the USSR (The Jeans Generation) is a number-one bestseller in Georgia. His short stories have been published internationally in literary magazines. Dato Turashvili’s works are translated into German, English, Italian, Croatian, Spanish, Korean, Basque, Russian and Armenian languages.
Aslı Perker was born in Izmir and throughout her school years moved all around the country because of her parents’ jobs. She graduated from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, American Studies Department at Dokuz Eylul University. She started her writing career at an advertising agency as a copywriter and then turned to journalism. She worked at Aktuel News Magazine and Radikal, Yeni Binyil and Sabah Newspapers. After moving to New York in 2001, she worked as a translator/interpreter and started focusing on her literature career. She still continues to write for various magazines and newspapers and currently lives in Istanbul.
Lyubko Deresh is a novelist, essayist, screenwriter, lecturer, curator, developer of innovative approaches to creativity. He was born in Lviv and graduated from Lviv Physics and Mathematics Lyceum with specialty «Chemistry and Biology» followed by a degree in Economics received from Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. At the age of 16, he debuted with his novel «The Cult», which has been translated into several European languages and is being republished until now. Lyubko Deresh is the author a number of books which were nominated for different literary awards. His last novel, “Desolation” (2017) got into the short list of Conrad prize. His novels and plays were staged in Germany, Moscow and Ukraine. He is also the author of many lectures-courses, among which are: «Birth of the Novel», «Writer and Death», «Culturology of the altered states» etc. In 2017 Deresh became the United Nations Development Project Tolerance Envoy in Ukraine to help Ukrainian society to overcome the rise of non-tolerance, induced by the war in Donbass.