Karine Armen (Kurkjian) is a teacher, photographer, social worker, and writer. She taught as an elementary school teacher in Glendale for 32 years. She has a B.A. in photography and social work and a M.A. in Education Administration. She enjoyed teaching creative writing and poetry to her second-graders. Karine has written articles for the Armenian Mirror-Spectator, Armenian Reporter, Armenian Weekly, and Asbarez. In 2010 Karine translated her mother's self-help articles from Farsi to English and published them in a book called Inner Heaven. She has several poetry chapbooks and is working on her memoir about cultural identity.