Literary Lights 2026: Sarah in conversation with Dana Walrath
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Literary Lights 2026 resumes this fall with an event featuring Sarah Ignatius, author of the critically acclaimed novel The Kaleidoscope of Destiny, in conversation with award-winning writer and multidisciplinary artist Dana Mashoian Walrath. The hybrid event, cosponsored by the Belmont Public Library, will take place on September 22, 2026, 7:30 PM Eastern Time at the NAASR Vartan Gregorian Building – 395 Concord Avenue, Belmont, Massachusetts. If you can’t make it in person, you can register to attend on Zoom or watch the livestream.
The year is 1915. Fourteen-year-old Arakel dreams of traveling the Silk Road with his two best friends—until the Armenian Genocide tears his world apart. Forced into exile across Syria, he must rely on strangers he once considered enemies to survive. With an elegance that reaffirms our collective humanity, The Kaleidoscope of Destiny reveals the courage, hope, and ingenuity to survive the darkest of times during an often-overlooked period of history and will resonate with today’s challenges. The Kaleidoscope of Destiny will be released by Koehler Books on September 22.
Book signing will follow the event. Support our programming by pre-ordering The Kaleidoscope of Destiny and The Book of Genocides at IALA’s Bookshop.org storefront. The books will also be available for purchase from the NAASR Bookstore on the day of the event.
Praise for the Book
“A beautiful and poignant novel that humanizes the Armenian genocide for a contemporary audience.” — Kirkus Reviews
“This novel offers an important perspective on one of the twentieth century’s greatest tragedies, restores its human dimension, and renews our faith in our shared humanity.” — Dr. Taner Akçam, director, Armenian Genocide Research Program, UCLA Promise Armenian Institute, and author of Killing Orders: Talat Pasha’s Telegrams and the Armenian Genocide
“An extraordinary novel. Courageous, tender, and timely. At last, a novel that gives the Armenian Genocide the literary witness it has long deserved. . . . Devastating and quietly luminous-a novel I will not forget.” — Dr. Ümit Kurt, University of Newcastle Faculty, Royal Historical Society Fellow, and author of The Armenians of Aintab
Before publishing her debut novel, The Kaleidoscope of Destiny, Sarah B. Ignatius worked for many years as a human rights lawyer and non-profit executive director. Along the way, she was a kids’ tennis instructor in Washington, D.C.; a hamburger bun toaster and cashier at Mr. & Mrs. Bartley’s Burger Cottage in Cambridge, MA; and a rural community organizer in southeastern Montana. Her writing has received recognition from the New England Society of Children’s Books Writers & Illustrators and the National League of American Pen Women, and she was selected as a Somerville Arts Council Literature Artist Fellow. She graduated from Stanford University and Georgetown University Law Center. She is the granddaughter of Armenians uprooted from their ancestral homeland in the Ottoman Empire in the early 1900s and lives in Massachusetts with her husband.
Literary Lights 2026 is our fourth annual reading series showcasing new works of literature by Armenian authors, cohosted with the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research and the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center. Each event—held online or in-person—features a writer reading from their work, followed by a discussion with an interviewer and audience members.
September 22, 2026, 7:30 pm — 9:30 pm
