Elmaz Abinader is an author and a performer. Her most recent poetry collection, This House, My Bones, was The Editor’s Selection for 2014 from Willow Books/Aquarius. Her books include a memoir: Children of the Roojme, A Family’s Journey from Lebanon, a book of poetry, In the Country of My Dreams… which won the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award. Her plays include Ramadan Moon, 32 Mohammeds, and Country of Origin and have been performed worldwide, with a culminating performance at the Kennedy Center. She has a frequent contributor to Al-Jazeera English. She has been anthologized widely including the New Anthology of American Poetry, Radical Hope, Truth to Power, and in The Colors of Nature. Most recently her fiction has appeared in Fifth Wednesday and Nimrod. She is currently completing a novel called Almost a Life, about a woman living in the Lebanese Civil War. Elmaz is one of the co-founders of The Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation (VONA/Voices) a writing workshop for writers-of-color. She teaches at Mills College and is an instructor at the Oakland Y.