Belonging in a New America
Immigration to the United States is fraught with misunderstanding, threats and acts of violence, and maybe even success and triumph. The authors of look at growing up and growing into places where regret and hope commingle
About the authors
SINDYA BHANOO, a longtime newspaper reporter, has worked as a reporter for The New York Times and The Washington Post, and was most recently a Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellow at the University of Michigan. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, the Michener Center for Writers, and Carnegie Mellon University. Her story collection Seeking Fortune Elsewhere was longlisted for the American Library Association’s Carnegie Medal and was the winner of the New American Voices Award. She is the recipient of an O. Henry Award, the Disquiet Literary Prize, an Elizabeth George Foundation grant, and scholarships from the Bread Loaf and Sewanee writers conferences. Sindya lives in Corvallis, Oregon and teaches at Oregon State University. READ MORE ABOUT SINDYA
BUSHRA REHMAN grew up in Corona, Queens but her mother says she was born in an ambulance flying through the streets of Brooklyn. Her first novel Corona, a poetic on-the-road adventure about being South-Asian in the United States, was chosen by the NY Public Library as one of its favorite novels about NYC. She’s co-editor of Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism and author of the collection of poetry Marianna’s Beauty Salon. Rehman’s latest novel Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion is about friendship and queer desire in a Muslim-American community. READ MORE ABOUT BUSHRA
NEEMA AVASHIA is the daughter of Indian immigrants, and was born and raised in southern West Virginia. She has been an educator and activist in the Boston Public Schools since 2003, and was named a City of Boston Educator of the Year in 2013. Her first book, Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place, was published by West Virginia University Press in March. It has been called “A timely collection that begins to fill the gap in literature focused mainly on the white male experience” by Ms. Magazine, and “A graceful exploration of identity, community, and contradictions,” by Scalawag. The book was named Best LGBTQ Memoir of 2022 by BookRiot, and was one of the New York Public Library’s Best Books of 2022. She lives in Boston with her partner, Laura, and her daughter, Kahani. READ MORE ABOUT NEEMA
About the Host
Derek Palacio is the author of the novella How to Shake the Other Man and the novel The Mortifications. He is a faculty member of the creative writing program at UNCG Greensboro.