and from the inside in

Artists’/Writers’ bios:
Etel Adnan is a Lebanese-American poet, essayist, visual artist, university lecturer, editor, and cultural critic. She was born
in Beirut, Lebanon in 1925. She studied philosophy at the Sorbonne, U.C. Berkeley, and Harvard. She taught philosophy
of art and also lectured at universities throughout the United States. She has written a number of documentaries, short
stories and plays, and one opera. Her novel Sitt Marie-Rose, won the France-Pays Arabes award and has been translated
into ten languages. At least eighteen works have been published in English. They include The Arab Apocalypse (Post-
Apollo Press, 1989); Sea and Fog (Nightboat Books, 2012), winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry and
the California Book Award for Poetry. In 2011, she received Small Press Traffic’s Lifetime Achievement Award. And, in 2014,
she was awarded one of France’s highest cultural honors: l’Ordre de Chevalier des Arts et Lettres. Adnan was named
“arguably the most celebrated and accomplished Arab American author writing today” by the academic journal
MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States. She currently lives in Paris.
Shahd Alshammari is Assistant Professor of English. She currently teaches in Kuwait and released her first poetry
collection entitled On Love and Loss by Strategic Book Publishing, New York.
Jana Aridi is a freelance architect and designer based in Beirut. She started painting at around age 13 but only
picked up portraits recently. She is fascinated by the human body, nature, materials, light and scale and tries to show
that in her work. In addition to painting, she likes creating objects keeping true to their material and origin as well as
their role in our everyday life.
Zeina Azzam is a Palestinian American educator, writer, editor, and activist. She works as executive director of The
Jerusalem Fund and Palestine Center in Washington, DC. Zeina holds an MA in Arabic language and literature. She has
dabbled in translation (Arabic to English), hand drumming, and choral singing.
Zeina Hashem Beck is a Lebanese poet whose first collection, To Live in Autumn (The Backwaters Press, 2014), has
won the 2013 Backwaters Prize. It was also a runner up for the Julie Suk Award, a category finalist for the 2015 Eric Hoffer
Awards, and has been included on Split This Rock’s list of recommended poetry books for 2014. Her second poetry
manuscript, titled Louder than Hearts, has been recently named runner-up for Bauhan Publishing’s May Sarton New
Hampshire Poetry Prize, judged by Mekeel McBride. She’s been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize (most recently
by Ploughshares), and her poems have been published or are forthcoming in various literary magazines, among which
are Ploughshares, Poetry Northwest, River Styx, The Common, Mizna, Rattle, 32 Poems, Mslexia, Magma, The Rialto, and
Sukoon. She lives with her husband and two daughters in Dubai, where she regularly performs her poetry and runs the
poetry and open mic collective PUNCH.
Nora Ali Bakhsh was born in Saudi Arabia and lived scattered years in many different parts of the world before
settling in the UAE 9 years ago, only to rediscover and fall in love with her long lost connection to the Arab world. Aside
from writing poetry, Nora is also a musician, singer and composer and works in the environmental sector.
Chaun Ballard was raised in both Missouri and California. He recently returned to the US after living with his wife
in Ghana, West Africa, where they taught at a local area school. For the past four years, they traveled and taught
throughout various countries in the Middle East, and are currently preparing for their new relocation.
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