Nancy Kricorian
Armenian American author Nancy Kricorian visited Palestine to give a training in creative writing. She was raised in the Armenian community of Watertown in the state of Massachusetts in the USA. Kricorian is a well-known and influential figure in modern American literature.
Kricorian's first novel, Zabelle, paints the ghosts of the Armenian genocide of 1915 through the haunted memories of the protangonist. In a review of Kricorian's second novel, The Los Angeles Times likened her to Irish writer James Joyce. In Dreams of Bread and Fire, the main character Ani struggles with her family history, determined to understand her identity and heritage. Kricorian's third novel All The Light There Was will be published soon.
The Palestine Writing Workshop hosted Kricorian in Palestine for five days as a guest in their "Writer in Residence" program. During this period, she gave an intensive 20-hour creative writing workshop entitled "Family Stories: Writing Fiction and Narrative Non-fiction from Life." The workshop focused on the importance of family stories and personal history in shaping an individual's sense of identity and belonging. Through the workshop, Kricorian helped participants develop and write stories that draw on ideas of family, heritage and identity.
The stories of Kricorian's Armenian roots have granted her a powerful voice and enabled her to convey with passion her family stories as well as the story of the Armenian genocide. Young writers across Palestine benefit from the expertise of this accomplished writer who had developed a training to help aspiring writers to narrate with creativity and passion stories of their own family and national heritage.
The training ran from 24 - 29 October 2011 in the town of Birzeit.
