ELMAZ ABINADER s a poet, memoirist, playwright and novelist. Her new collection of poetry, This House, My Bones was the 2014 Editors Selection from Willow Books and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her first memoir, Children of the Roojme, a Family's Journey from Lebanon, chronicles 3 generations of immigrants battling dislocation and tradition. The poetry collection, In the Country of My Dreams... won the 2000 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Poetry award. She was also awarded a Goldies Award for Literature, as well as, two Drammies (Oregon's Drama award) for her three-act one-woman show, Country of Origin. Elmaz most recently performed Country of Origin at the Kennedy Center and has toured several countries with this play and her others: Ramadan Moon and 32 Mohammeds. Elmaz's work has been widely anthologized, most recently in The New Anthology of American Poetry, Vol. 3, and The Colors of Nature. Elmaz has been a Fulbright Senior Fellow to Egypt, taught for the Palestine Writing Workshop and a resident at the El Gouna Writing Residency on the Red Sea. Elmaz is one of the founders of the Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation, (VONA/Voices) in its 15th year providing workshops for writer-of-color. She is also a creative writing professor at Mills College and a fitness instructor at the Oakland Y.Her writing comes from a tradition in her culture and family to tell stories, createpoetry and fill the house with music as a way of communicating the significantmoments of a life, a family and a village. After receiving her MFA in poetry fromColumbia University, she worked in advertising, then supplemented it withteaching in various schools throughout New York. Later, she was awarded herPHD from the University of Nebraska where her dissertation was built around thesource materials for Children of the Roojme. Elmaz won a post doctoralfellowship, The Schweitzer Post-doctoral Fellowship in the Humanities, which gaveher the opportunity to work with Toni Morrison for two years developing her firstbook.Now a professor at Mills College, Elmaz's primary concern is giving voice to otherwriters of color. Her participation in VONA allows her the opportunity to make adifference in the growth of the cannon of literature of color.In addition, Elmaz is a fitness instructor at the YMCA in Oakland CA where shelives with her husband Anthony Byers.