Role: Translator

Cambridge (MA) poet Diana Der-Hovanessian got some far-flung publicity recently. Her book, "Selected Poems," was being given out on Minnesota Public Radio to donors of $66 during its recent fund-raisier. Der-Hovanessian said she heard about it from her publisher, Sheep Meadow Press in New York. "I guess it's because of Garrison Keillor; he uses things from my books on `Writer's Almanac,'" she said, referring to his syndicated radio show, which is carried on WGBH in Boston. Keillor often reads the poem "Shifting the Sun." Der-Hovanessian is president of the New England Poetry Club.

Kherdian is widely recognized as one of the most important and distinctive voices in Armenian-American poetry for nearly four decades. The title poem to his collection On the Death of My Father was praised by William Saroyan as “one of the best lyric poems in American poetry.” Kherdian has also memorably chronicled his youth growing up in Racine, Wisconsin, and his experiences as an Armenian American in such works as Homage to Adana, Friends: A Memoir, I Remember Root River, The Dividing River/The Meeting Shore, and My Racine, among many other works.