Contributors
Bringing you original, creative content
Photo credit: Norayr Kasper, "Residues of a Slogan." Fotoistanbul 2015.Here we celebrate our freelance contributors
Here at h-pem, we thrive on original content that sends ripples of contagious enthusiasm.
We welcome writers who are experts in their fields, but you don’t have to be a professional writer, a cultural expert, or an art critic to contribute. If you enjoy writing and can breathe life into your stories, we want to hear from you. All you have to do is pitch your proposal.
Add your name to our list of contributors list today!
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New York, N.Y., United States
Theresa Lin
Undergraduate Writing Program Instructor
Theresa Lin is an MFA candidate and an Undergraduate Writing Program Instructor at Columbia University. She is working on a novel about a woman living within the constraints of Kuomintang occupation in Taiwan during the 1950s. She spent the summer teaching creative writing at TUMO in Yerevan and dreamed frequently of the snow caps on Mount Aragats, apricots, and walnut sujuk.
Alan Semerdjian
Writer/musician
Award-winning writer/musician/educator Alan Semerdjian is the author of In the Architecture of Bone (GenPop Books). Semerdjian’s poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in several notable print and online publications and anthologies, including The Brooklyn Rail, Adbusters, Frontier Poetry, and Fence. He released a chapbook of poems called An Improvised Device (Lock n Load Press/Gathering of the Tribes) in 2005, a collaboration of poems and sound with guitarist/composer Aram Bajakian titled The Serpent and The Crane in 2020, and a short experimental film made with Bajakian and artist Kevork Mourad, An Armenian Triptych: Retracing Our Steps, in 2021.
Semerdjian has performed and read all over North America, and his songs have appeared in television and film and charted on CMJ. He currently teaches at Herricks High School in New Hyde Park, N.Y.
Ani Tascian
Writer; Teacher
Ani Tascian was born and raised in California’s San Francisco Bay Area. She has her B.A. from U.C. Berkeley in English Literature and M.F.A. in Creative Non-Fiction from Saint Mary’s College of California. She has also been awarded residencies at VONA/Voices and Vermont Studio Center and was a poet-in-residence in Berkeley schools. Her essays can be found in Citron Review, Bird’s Thumb, Foliate Review, and other publications. Ani currently writes and teaches in Berkeley, Calif. Her current project, Objects in Mirror Closer Than They Appear, is a memoir about how historical trauma lives generationally in the body.
Lena Tashjian
Author; Recipe developer
Lena Tashjian is a writer and recipe developer based in Canada. After living in Armenia for six years, she launched Vegan Armenian Kitchen, a website and YouTube channel focused on plant-based and veganized Armenian cuisine, and the stories and traditions behind them. She also writes about traveling, cute animals, and her frequent adventures in Armenia. Most recently, she authored The Vegan Armenian Kitchen Cookbook, a collaborative cookbook project.
Montreal, Canada
Gohar Topchyan
Philanthropic Worker; Content Writer
Gohar is currently based in Montreal, Quebec, and works for a Canadian philanthropic foundation as Program Manager. She holds an MA in European Interdisciplinary Studies from the College of Europe in Warsaw, an MA in British Studies from Humboldt University of Berlin, and a BA in English and French from Brusov State Linguistic University in Yerevan. Before moving to Canada, Gohar worked for several years as a writer, editor, and translator in Yerevan. In her spare time, Gohar enjoys travelling, hiking, attending cultural events, classical music concerts, and art exhibitions.