Then the Fish Swallowed Him is Amir Ahmadi Arian’s acclaimed first novel in English after a career as a journalist, author and translator in Iran. Ruvanee Pietersz Vilhauer is a psychology professor and science writer who has turned to fiction with her first novel, a hypnotic thriller: The Mask Collectors.

Nancy Star talks to these two compelling debut novelists, accomplished in other fields, about what drew them to fiction, and what they have learned and gained from writing their first novel.

All authors appear for free and the best way you can support them is to buy their book. Amir's, Ruvanee's, and Nancy's books are available from Festival partner Watchung Booksellers here.

Amir Ahmadi Arian started out as a journalist in Iran in 2000 and has since published a collection of stories, a nonfiction book, and two novels in Persian. He also translated from English to Persian novels by E.L Doctorow, Paul Auster, P.D. James, and Cormac McCarthy. Since leaving Iran in 2011 to complete a PhD in comparative literature at the University of Queensland, Australia, he has published short stories and essays in Michigan Quarterly Review, Guernica, the New York Times, and the Guardian. He currently lives in New York where he earned an MFA in the NYU Creative Writing Program as The Axinn Foundation/E.L. Doctorow Fellowship recipient, and teaches literature and creative writing at CUNY City College.

Ruvanee Pietersz Vilhauer is the author of The Mask Collectors, a literary thriller set in New Jersey and Sri Lanka. She is also the author of a collection of short stories, The Water Diviner and Other Stories, which won the Iowa Short Fiction Award. She is a former winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Competition, and her short fiction has appeared in many literary journals. Before her career as an academic psychologist, she worked as a science writer for NASA and as a therapist in many settings, including a jail. Until recently, she had a day job as a psychology professor at New York University. She lives in New Jersey.

Nancy Star is the author of five novels including the bestselling Sisters, One, Two, Three, which landed on the Publishers Weekly list of Top Ten Bestsellers of 2016. Her sixth novel, Rules for Moving, the story of a beloved advice columnist whose life is out of control, was published in May 2020. In addition to her novels, Nancy’s essays have appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, andFamily Circle, among other places. Before becoming a novelist, she spent over a decade working as a movie executive at the Samuel Goldwyn Company and The Ladd Company, dividing her time between New York and London. She raised and launched two kids here in Montclair, where she still lives with her husband.

This event is part of Succeed2gether’s Montclair Literary Festival's special series of author events, Global Voices taking place on March 20 and March 21, 2021, and featuring authors and poets from England, Scotland, Ireland, Korea, Iran, Dubai, Sri Lanka, Ecuador, and Spain.  The fifth annual Montclair Literary Festival will take place on Saturday October 2, 2021, with a combination of live and online events.

See all of the talks by following us on Crowdcast here or visiting our website events page here.

Any proceeds from the festival benefit parent organization, Montclair-based non-profit Succeed2gether, which offers after-school one-on-one tutoring and enrichment classes with the aim of closing the education and opportunity gaps in Essex County, NJ. You can read more about Succeed2gether and the festival at www.succeed2gether.org.

The festival organizing committee wishes to thank event partners Montclair Public Library and Watchung Booksellers, and festival sponsors Rao's, West of Hudson Realty Group, Jill Williams (Ameriprise Financial), Ferguson Dental, the County of Essex, and community members.

New Voices with Amir Ahmadi Arian and Ruvanee Pietersz Vilhauer