Three Stages of Amazement by Carol Edgarian

I get my kids off to school, walk the dog, then she and I head upstairs to my office and close the door. I settle at the kitchen table with my laptop and coffee, with the dog beside me. I begin my day early, when it’s still dark and the rest of the house is asleep. She is someone I count as a friend, a warrior, and a light along the dark curves of the road.Īt home. I am grateful for her writing, for her camaraderie, for the gentle ways she invites me and so many other emerging writers into this sometimes unkind world of writing. Her writing about the Armenian Genocide is a place where I can see and understand the pains and survivings of my own peoples and families. It is because of her beckoning that I have had the fuel to begin shaping and learning what the “essay” means and looks like to me. She has been a generous and kind supporter of my work, and most importantly to me, she has urged and challenged me to write larger, vaster, into corners that move beyond genre, corners that privilege not art per se but life and how we are all trying so hard to live it good, to live it the best that we can. I first met Carol Edgarian through Narrative Magazine. She is co-founder and editor of Narrative. This week, guest editor Natalie Diaz speaks with author, editor, and publisher Carol Edgarian, whose novels include the New York Times bestseller Three Stages of Amazement and the international bestseller Rise the Euphrates, winner of the ANC Freedom Prize.

The PEN Ten is PEN America’s weekly interview series.

2023 PEN America Literary Awards Ceremony.

Three Stages of Amazement by Carol Edgarian