Join Books on the Square on Friday, October 13th at 7:00 p.m. for Writing Home/Homeland with Nancy Abagian, Nada Samih-Rotondo, and Jared Harel.

The Fear of Large and Small Nations  by Nancy Abagian 

In The Fear of Large and Small Nations, feminist writer and teacher Natalee—aka Na—seeks to reclaim her cultural roots in Armenia only to be confronted with the many contradictions of being a diasporan. When she falls for a charismatic younger man and returns with him to New York City, Na becomes trapped in an abusive web of codependency, bound by intergenerational trauma, political ideals, and, above all, love. Written in gripping short stories interspersed with intimate journal entries and blog posts, the fragmented narrative reveals what is lost in the tightrope passage between cultures ravaged by violence and colonialism—and what is gained when Na seizes control of her story, pulsating in its many shades and realities, daring to be witnessed.

Nancy Agabian is the author of Princess Freak, a mixed genre collection of poems, short prose, and performance texts on young women’s sexuality and rage, and Me as her again: True Stories of an Armenian Daughter, a memoir about the influence of her Armenian family’s history on her coming-of-age. Me as her again was honored as a Lambda Literary Award finalist for LGBT Nonfiction and shortlisted for a William Saroyan International Prize. In 2021, Nancy received the Jeanne Córdova Prize for Lesbian/Queer Nonfiction from Lambda Literary. Her novel The Fear of Large and Small Nations, a multilayered epic on Armenian diaspora-homeland relationships, was honored as a finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially-Engaged Fiction. She is currently working on a personal essay collection, In-Between Mouthfuls.

Nancy has an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from Columbia University’s School of the Arts. She taught creative writing at Queens College for ten years as an adjunct, where she was awarded for excellence in teaching in 2012. She has been teaching in the Writing Program at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University since 2009.  She recently relocated to Massachusetts to care for her parents. Her mother passed away in 2022; Nancy continues to care for her father.

All Water has Perfect Memory: A Memoir by Nada Samih-Rotondo

Life changed forever for six-year-old Nada following Iraq’s invasion of her birth country, Kuwait, and subsequent immigration to the United States with her maternal family. Just as she finally settles into her strange new life apart from her father in Rhode Island, learns English, and grasps the fact that she is not merely visiting but is here to stay, life throws other surprises her way to forever change her world.

A debut work from a Palestinian American author, All Water Has a Perfect Memory is a memoir that takes readers from the author’s ancestral origins- the coast of Yaffa, Palestine, to her birthplace of Kuwait, eventually landing on the shores of Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island. The narrative confronts generations of silence and, ultimately, revelation with an imaginative blend of folklore and history that explores the relationship between our bodies, ancestors, and the Earth. The work explores the way the author is intertwined with her maternal line while reuniting with her father after a 30-year separation.

Voices once hidden in the waters of our bodies are amplified and released to forever alter the landscape, breaking cycles and seeding an audacious hope interconnected to lands past and present.

Nada Samih-Rotondo (Fiction, June 2012) is a multi-genre Palestinian American writer, educator, and mother. A graduate of Rhode Island College, she earned degrees in English and Education and an MFA in creative writing from Lesley University. Her writing has appeared in Masters Review, Gulf Stream Literary Magazine, and Squat Birth Journal. She lives in Providence with her husband and three children and works at Brown University.

Let Our Bodies Change the Subject by Jared Harél

Let Our Bodies Change the Subject is a poetry collection that dives headlong into the terrifying, wondrous, sleep-deprived existence of being a parent in twenty-first-century America. In clear, dynamic verses that disarm then strike, Jared Harél investigates our days through the keyhole of domesticity, through personal lyrics and cultural reckonings. Whether taking a family trip to Coney Island or simply showing his son snowflakes on Inauguration morning, Harél guides us toward moments of intimacy and understanding, humor and grief.

“I will try,” he admits, “to be better than myself, which is all/I’ve ever wanted and everything I need.” Winner of the Raz/Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry, Let Our Bodies Change the Subject is a secular prayer. Hoping against hope, Harél works to reconcile feelings of luck and loss, of living for joy while fearing the worst.

Jared Harél is the author of Go Because I Love You. He has been awarded the Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize from American Poetry Review and the William Matthews Poetry Prize from Asheville Poetry Review. His poems have appeared in 32 Poems, Beloit Poetry Journal, Bennington Review, New Ohio Review, Ploughshares, Poem-a-Day, the Southern Review, and The Sun. Harél teaches writing, plays drums, and lives in Westchester, New York, with his wife and two children.