Elmaz Abinader

Elmaz Abinader (born 1954 in Pennsylvania) is an American author, poet, performer, English professor at Mills College and co-founder of the Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation (VONA). She is of Lebanese descent. In 2000, she received the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award for her poetry collection In the Country of My Dreams....

Life and career Abinader's parents immigrated to the United States from Lebanon. Abinader was born in Masontown, a small coal mining community in southwest Pennsylvania, and grew up in Carmichaels, attending Catholic church twice a day, and focusing on her schooling. Abinader and her siblings faced challenges due to their ethnicity. She graduated from Carmichaels Area High School in 1971.

Abinader received her B.A. in Writing and Communication from University of Pittsburgh in 1974. It was during this time that she embraced her heritage and wrote about her family's history, spurred by the Lebanese Civil War and its affect on American perception of Lebanese people. In 1985, she completed her PhD program at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, with her dissertation, Letters from Home: Stories of Fathers and Sons.

In October 1985, Abinader was appointed to the Schweitzer Humanities Fellowship position at Albany State University, which was scheduled to run through 1987.

Abinader currently teaches creative writing at Mills College.

Work Abinader's first book, Children of the Roojme: A Family's Journey from Lebanon (Norton, 1991) is a memoir covering three generations of her Lebanese family and the challenges of finding a home away from their country. Her second publication, In the Country of My Dreams..., is a collection of poetry focused on dislocation and its various forms. This collection won the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award for Multi-cultural Poetry in 2000 and a Goldies Award for Literature.

Along with her books, she has written and performed in several one-woman plays: Under The Ramadan Moon, Country of Origin, 32 Mohammeds, Voices From the Siege, and The Torture Quartet. Her play Country of Origin was performed at The Kennedy Center in 2009.

Personal life As of 1991, Abinader was married to Alan Lemke. Republished 1997 by University of Wisconsin Press

In anthologies

Performances Imagining Peace, Southbank Centre, London UK, October 2010 Country of Origin, Arabesques Festival, Kennedy Center, Washington DC, March 2009 Lies War Discrimination, La Pena Cultural Center, Berkeley CA March 1, 2007 Cease Fire, La Pena Cultural Center, Berkeley CA, August 2006 Poetry and Music of Arab-Americans, Amazon Lounge, Fresno CA, April 20, 2006 Voices from the Siege, debuted 2006, La Pena Cultural Center, Berkeley 32 Mohammeds, Martin Segal Theater, New York NY, March 3, 2005 The Torture Quartet, debuted 2005, University of San Francisco Flower Girl, Wyoming Arts Council, Casper College, Casper WY, October 2, 2004 32 Mohammeds, debuted, 2004 University of North Dakota Ramadan Moon, debuted 2000, Porter Troupe Gallery, San Diego Country of Origin, debuted 1997, University of California, Berkeley

Awards and residencies 2013 Writers in Residence, Grand Canyon National Park 2013 Residency Fellowship, Canserrat Artist Residency, Spain 2011 Teaching Fellowship, Palestine Writing Workshop 2010 Writer in Residence, El Gouna Writers Residency, Egypt 2010 Quigley Summer Fellowship 2010 Faculty Development Grant, Mills College 2007 Arts Fellowship, Silicon Valley Arts Council, Fiction 2006 Residency MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH 2006 Residency, Villa Montalvo, Saratoga, CA 2003 Endowed Chair, Mills College 2003 Pushcart Prize Nomination for The Silence 2003 Residency, Chateau La Vigny, Switzerland 2002 Goldies Award, San Francisco Bay Guardian Recognition in Arts 2000 PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award, Poetry 1999 Drammy, Oregon's Drama Award, for Country of Origin, at IFCC 1998–1999 Fulbright Senior Scholarship Egypt 1997–1998, 2000–2003 Quigley Fellowship 1994–2005 Faculty Development Grant, Mills College 1996, 1995, 1994 Quigley Summer Fellowship 1995 Best All Around Award, Writers' Harvest, Share Our Strength, Annapolis