About

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Garinè Isassi is a recovering journalist and the author of the award–winning novel Start with the Backbeat. Additional publications include the weekly humor column, Mom in the Middle; the anthologies, This is What America Looks Like (2021) and Grace in Love (2023); and Gargoyle Online. In 2022, she won a grant from the Arts & Humanities Council of Montgomery County and was accepted into the George Washington University JMM Writing Workshop. She is proud of her Armenian American heritage, and often draws upon that experience in her work.

Garinè is the Gaithersburg Book Festival Adult Workshops Chair and on the organizing committee of the Washington Writers Conference. She is a singer/songwriter who grew up with one foot in Texas and the other in New Jersey; a lover of music, chocolate, and altruistic sarcasm. She writes when everyone else is asleep.

Professional Memberships:

  • Historical Novel Society
  • Maryland Writers’ Association
  • Eastern Shore Writers Association
  • International Armenian Literary Alliance

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