Anahid Literary Prize award ceremony to be held at Columbia University Faculty House on March 30

2026-02-28 - 14:05

NEW YORK — The Columbia University Armenian Center will host the Anahid Literary Prize award ceremony on Monday, March 30, at 4:15 p.m. at Faculty House, located at 64 Morningside Drive, New York, NY. Entrance is on 116th Street between Amsterdam Avenue and Morningside Drive. Registration is required. To register, visit: https://forms.gle/qoQXc1eaWBUHHzGJ7. After opening remarks by Peter Balakian, the ceremony will feature readings by prize recipients Lory Bedikian and Aaron Poochigian, followed by a conversation and reception. The Anahid Literary Prize has been awarded to Lory Bedikian for 2024 and Aaron Poochigian for 2025. The award recognizes writers of Armenian descent writing in English who are in the early or middle stages of their careers and honors their literary achievement. Founded by an anonymous donor, the prize has been administered by the Columbia University Armenian Center since 1989. Past recipients include writers in poetry, fiction, playwriting and screenwriting such as Laura Kalpakian, Leslie Ayvasian, Peter Balakian, Eric Bogosian, Diana Der Hovanessian, Micheline Marcom, Aris Janigian, Atom Egoyan, Arthur Nersesian, Patricia Sarafian Ward and Susan Barba. The prize carries a $5,000 cash award. The prize committee includes Peter Balakian, Aris Janigian, Micheline Marcom and Patricia Sarafian Ward. Lory Bedikian is the author of The Book of Lamenting, which won the Philip Levine Prize in Poetry, and Jagadakeer: Apology to the Body, which received the 2023 Raz/Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry and was published by the University of Nebraska Press. Her poems have appeared in Gulf Coast, Tin House, The Los Angeles Review, Northwest Review and Massachusetts Review. Bedikian holds a BA from the University of California, Los Angeles, and an MFA from the University of Oregon. She teaches poetry workshops in Los Angeles and elsewhere, including at Poets House of New York and the Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center of Los Angeles. Aaron Poochigian is the author of the poetry collections Manhattanite, The Cosmic Purr and American Divine, which won the Richard Wilbur Award. His work has appeared in Best American Poetry, The Paris Review and POETRY. His most recent book, Four Walks in Central: A Poetic Guide to the Park, was published in September 2025. He holds a Ph.D. in Classics from the University of Minnesota and an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University. His translations from Greek and Latin have been published by Penguin Classics and W.W. Norton, including Stung with Love: Poems and Fragments by Sappho.