In a recent interview with Bookish Brews, Angel Eye author Madeleine Nakamura talks about the concept and her experience of defensive writing—the anxiety over imagined criticism that can cause writers to constrain or minimize their work. She shares how this challenge was especially present early in her writing journey and how she began to move past it while working on Cursebreakers and Angel Eye. Focusing on “writing for people who like what I like and understand what I’m saying,” Nakamura discusses the importance of embracing one’s creative instincts.

Thank you to the New York Times for a beautiful obituary for our dear Nahid Rachlin, who passed away on April 30, 2025. We’re honored to have been a part of her literary legacy and will miss her dearly.

On May 8, Nancy Kricorian discussed and read from her latest book, “The Burning Heart of the World” at Roeliff Jansen Community Library in Hillsdale, New York.

Kricorian was interviewed by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian, the curator of mycology at The New York State Museum and author of “Forest Euphoria: On the Abounding Queerness of Nature,” to be published May 27, 2025.

Kricorian’s latest novel is fourth in a series of books focused on the post-genocide Armenian diaspora experience.

“I am to be a voice for my people,” stated Kricorian who grew up in an Armenian community in Watertown, Massachusetts alongside her grandmother, a genocide survivor.

In this episode of Words on a Wire, host Daniel Chacón welcomes back poet Adela Najarro to discuss her powerful new collection, Variations in Blue, published by Red Hen Press. With warmth, candor, and insight, Najarro reflects on how art, memory, and community shape her work. Najarro also pays tribute to her literary influences, including Pablo Neruda, while critically reimagining their legacies through a feminist lens. This moving dialogue is a testament to the power of poetry to confront silence, reclaim narrative, and build connection.

Mekong Review has published a powerful profile of Andrew Lam in its latest issue. Written by Connla Stokes, this feature highlights Lam’s journey from fleeing Vietnam in 1975 to becoming literary voices of the Vietnamese diaspora.

LibraryThing is pleased to sit down this month with novelist Nancy Kricorian, whose work explores the experiences of the post-genocide Armenian diaspora. Her debut novel, Zabelle, published in 1998, has been translated into seven languages and adapted as a play. Her essays and poems have appeared in journals like The Los Angeles Review of Books Quarterly, Guernica, Parnassus, Minnesota Review, and The Mississippi Review. Kricorian has taught at Barnard, Columbia, Yale, and New York University, as well as with Teachers & Writers Collaborative in the New York City Public Schools, and she has been a mentor with We Are Not Numbers. She has been the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, a Gold Medal from the Writers Union of Armenia, and the Anahid Literary Award. Her newest book, The Burning Heart of the World, follows the story of an Armenian family caught up in the Lebanese Civil War, and was recently published by Red Hen Press. Kricorian sat down with Abigail to answer some questions about her new book.