Ava Homa

Award-winning author, professor, and speaker

Ava Homa is the author of Daughters of Smoke and Fire (HarperCollins and Abrams), a novel that traces fifty years of modern Kurdish history. The book was selected for Roxane Gay’s Book Club, received the 2020 Nautilus Silver Book Award for Fiction, and was a finalist for the 2022 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. It was named among the year’s notable books by The Wall Street Journal, The Independent (UK), and The Globe and Mail (Canada), and is taught at universities across North America, including George Mason University, the University of Toronto, and Southern Methodist University.

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Her story collection, Echoes from the Other Land, was nominated for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. Her forthcoming poetry collection, Octopus Alchemy, is a finalist for the 2026 Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize.

Her essays and criticism have appeared in outlets including the BBC, Literary Review of Canada, Literary Hub, and openDemocracy. She has spoken internationally, including at the United Nations in Geneva.

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Ava is an assistant professor of Creative Writing and Social Action at California State University, Monterey Bay. She also teaches mystic's literature—including the poetry of Rumi—at San Francisco State University. She publishes ongoing reflections on Rumi on Substack.