HALA ALYAN is the author of the novel Salt Houses, winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Arab American Book Award and a finalist for the Chautauqua Prize, as well as the novel The Arsonists' City and four award-winning collections of poetry, most recently The Twenty-Ninth Year. Her work has been published by The New Yorker, the Academy of American Poets, LitHub, the New York Times Book Review, and Guernica. She lives in Brooklyn, where she works as a clinical psychologist.

Youmna Chlala is a writer and artist born in Beirut and based in New York. She is the author of the poetry collection The Paper Camera. She has published in BOMB, Guernica, Aster(ix), Bespoke and Prairie Schooner, for which she won an O. Henry Award. Her artwork has been exhibited at the Bienal de São Paulo, Lofoten International Art Festival, and Performa Biennial, as well as the Hayward Gallery, The Drawing Center, Art in General, Art Dubai Projects, and Kunsthal Charlottenborg. She is co-editing a new series for Coffee House Press entitled Spatial Species.

Hala Alyan on The Arsonists’ City with Youmna Chlala