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The International Armenian Literary Alliance’s October edition of Literary Lights 2025 reading series features Nicole Haroutunian, author of Choose This Now, in conversation with fellow writer, journalist and IALA founder Olivia Katrandjian. The virtual event, cosponsored by Literary Mama, will take place on October 19, 2025, at 9:00 AM Pacific | 12:00 PM Eastern | 8:00 PM AMT.
Inseparable friends Val-and-Tal are used to making their decisions together. But what happens when their choices become their own? CHOOSE THIS NOW, a novel-in-stories, illuminates the small moments that shape their lives across nearly twenty years. On Val’s 21st birthday—which falls on Halloween—a sudden act of violence interrupts a longed-for kiss. This unfinished moment haunts Val year after year until she materializes in a new town to confront her past. Tal, an aspiring painter, vacillates between dedicating herself to art and literally burning it all down. As they fall in and out of love, start and restart careers, and become mothers, Valerie and Taline struggle to define themselves, with and without each other. CHOOSE THIS NOW takes on art, labor, romantic love, pregnancy, and parenthood—and the role of friendship in forging a life.
Nicole Haroutunian is the author of the novel-in-stories CHOOSE THIS NOW (Noemi Press, 2024), named one of the best story collections of the year by Electric Literature, and the story collection SPEED DREAMING (Little a, 2015). Her work has appeared in The Rumpus, Story, The Georgia Review, and elsewhere. She hosts and programs the reading series “Story Time” for Caregivers at the Astoria Bookshop, works in museum education, and lives with her family in Woodside, Queens in New York City.
Olivia Katrandjian is a writer and journalist published in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Oxford Review of Books, Ms. Magazine, and elsewhere. Her writing was anthologized in We Are All Armenian: Voices from the Diaspora. Her fiction was listed for Luxembourg’s National Literary Prize, the Bristol and Cambridge Short Story Prizes, the Oxford-BNU Award and the Dzanc Books Prize for Fiction. A 2021 Creative Armenia-AGBU fellow, she studied creative writing at Oxford University, and is the founder of the International Armenian Literary Alliance.
Literary Lights 2025 is a monthly reading series organized by IALA, the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research, and the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center. Each event—held online or in-person—will feature a writer reading from their work, followed by a discussion with an interviewer and audience members. Keep an eye on our website and socials for the exact dates of each event. Read along with the series by purchasing titles from the IALA Bookstore powered by Bookshop.
