Seventh Wave: Tell us about your work or what you’re writing these days. What or who are you writing for?

Nyree: In Armenia, where I live, we’re grappling with the aftermath of war and ethnic cleansing, plus massive geopolitical shifts in our region. It’s an uncertain and existentially troubling time. I try to make sense of it all by listening to and telling stories. I’m working on a podcast, a poetry collection and on building a community of storytellers.

Country of Dust is an English-language narrative podcast about life in a changing Armenia. We tell the stories of the people who are living through this turbulent time in a way that we hope will inform and build empathy, whether or not you are familiar with our region. Our first season is available on all podcast platforms and we’re currently working on season two. 

At the same time, I’m working on a poetry collection that explores language, land, and identity – where are how they intersect, and what happens when those links are ruptured. More concretely, my work stems from my experiences in the recent war and ethnic cleansing of Artsakh, and my family’s history of resistance and displacement in Musa Dagh, in present-day southeastern Turkey. 

And finally, I co-founded the Tumanyan International Storytelling Festival, an annual gathering in the mountains of northern Armenia which aims to reconnect contemporary audiences with the tradition of storytelling and help construct new narratives. After two successful iterations of the festival, we are now exploring ways to continue supporting and expanding our community of storytellers worldwide. 

TSW: When you are working in multiple forms and genres, how do you settle on the form for each project?

Nyree: It really depends on the tone and texture of what I’m trying to communicate. In late 2020, I was trying to write a long-form article that would capture the multiple layers of uncertainty in the immediate aftermath of the war in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh). But rather than a neat narrative, what came out was a disordered and fragmented series of images. It wasn’t intentional, but poetry presented itself as the best medium for what I needed to convey.

With Country of Dust, my co-producers and I wanted to get to the heart of the nuanced and varied experience of life in Armenia today, and it felt like it needed to be conversational, so it made sense to think of it as a series of audio documentaries.

It’s often a challenge to switch modes between projects, but at their best, they intersect in the most beautiful ways – they inform, inspire and grow from one another. I might be conducting an interview for the podcast, and the person will say something that will be the first line of a poem.

TSW: What is a question you’re asking yourself these days, and, what’s a question you are or your work is asking of your reader?

Nyree: I think for the most part, the questions I’m asking myself are the same ones I’m asking of my reader. In my poetry, especially, I’m asking: “What does it mean to belong to a place?” and “What do we hold onto when the earth shifts beneath our feet?” 

I’m also curious about how people behave in urgent situations. What compels us to act? What can poetry (and art, in general) do? 

TSW: What’s a mantra, motto, or piece of advice that you have in mind these days when you are writing or creating?

Nyree: It’s not a mantra or a motto, but I’m learning how to strike the right balance between listening when inspiration strikes, and committing to a regular writing practice. When an idea or a phrase keeps me up at night, I grab hold and run with it. But I also don’t rely solely on these revelatory moments. When I’m able to commit time and space every day to my creative practice, I see how it blooms. 

Depending on what else is going on in my life and other projects, how much time I can dedicate to writing shifts from season to season. But the more disciplined I am in sticking to my designated writing time,  the more seemingly random moments of inspiration float my way.