Raffi Joe Wartanian

Raffi Joe Wartanian is a writer, musician, and educator who teaches writing at UCLA and serves as the inaugural Poet Laureate in the City of Glendale, California. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, University of Texas Press, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Baltimore Sun, Miami Herald, Outside Magazine, Lapham’s Quarterly, No Dear Magazine, The Los Angeles Press, and elsewhere. Raffi has taught writing to veterans at the Manhattan VA, incarcerated writers at Rikers Island, youth in Armenia, and undergraduates at Columbia University, where he earned an MFA in writing. He is the recipient of grants and fellowships from The Fulbright Program, Eurasia Partnership Foundation, and Humanity in Action. As a musician, Raffi has released two albums of original compositions: Critical Distance and Pushkin Street.