The Fall 2024 Lang Craft Talks series concludes with Tehron-born and Los Angeles raised poet, Porochista Khakpour.

Porochista Khakpour was born in Tehran and raised in Los Angeles's San Gabriel Valley. Her debut novel Sons and Other FlammableObjects (Grove, 2007) was a New York Times Editor’s Choice, one of the Chicago Tribune’s Fall’s Best, and the 2007 California Book Award winner in the “First Fiction” category. Her second novel The Last Illusion (Bloomsbury, 2014) was a 2014 "Best Book of the Year" according to NPR, Kirkus, Buzzfeed, Popmatters, Electric Literature, and many more. Her widely acclaimed third book Sick: A Memoir (Harper Perennial, 2018) was a Best Book of 2018 according to TIME, Real Simple, Entropy, Mental Floss, Bitch Media, Autostraddle, The Paris Review, LitHub, and more. Her essay collection Brown Album: Essays on Exile & Identity (Vintage, May 2020), has been praised in The New York Times, O: Oprah Magazine, TIME, goop, USA Today, and many more. Her most recent book, Tehrangeles: A Novel, came out in June 2024 (Pantheon), and was an Indie Next Pick, an NPR Book of the Day, one of TIME's 25 Most Anticipated Books of 2024, as well as one of the "Best Books of 2024 (So Far)" by Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, W, and more.

Among her many fellowships is a National Endowment for the Arts award. Her other writing has appeared in many sections of The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Bookforum, Elle, Slate, and many others. She has taught creative writing and literature at Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University, Bucknell University, Bard College, Wesleyan University, Sarah Lawrence College, Fordham University, the University of Leipzig, and more for the past 20 years. She is a contributing editor at Evergreen Review and lives in NYC.

Lang hosts a series of weekly dynamic and interactive lessons in the craft of writing. Each week features a different writer including Lang faculty, alumni and special guest writers. 

 
Visit the Lang Craft Talks Hub for the full line-up of writers this semester!