ABOUT KATHRYN

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Kathryn Silver-Hajo is a 2023 Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Best American Food Writing nominee who writes short fiction, long fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry, mostly about life and relationships in the U.S. and Lebanon. Her story, "The Sweet Softness of Dates" was selected for the Wigleaf Top 50 2023 Longlist. Her story, For Better, For Worse, was shortlisted in Fractured Lit’s 2022 Reprint Prize. She is currently a reader for Fractured Lit.

 

Kathryn’s story collection, Wolfsong, was published in May, 2023 by ELJ Editions. 

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Her novel, Roots of The Banyan Tree, will be published in Fall 2023 by Juventud Press.  

 

Kathryn's work has been published or is forthcoming in Atticus Review, Bending Genres, Citron Review, Cleaver Magazine, Craft Literary, Emerge Literary Review, Fictive Dream, Flash Boulevard, New World Writing, New York Times-Modern Love, Pithead Chapel, Ruby Literary Review, Rusted Radishes Journal: Beirut Literary and Art Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, and many other lovely places.

 

She lives in Providence with her husband and saucy, curly-tailed pup, Kaya. In addition to writing, she is a passionate cook and explorer of places near and far.  

 

Kathryn studied in the Creative Writing MFA program at Emerson College, has a degree in Middle Eastern studies, and speaks Arabic fluently. After graduating, she moved to Beirut from Boston with her future husband and lived there for several years during times of war and conflict—but also of joy and inspiration. She continues to have a robust family and social network in the Middle East.

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ABOUT THE NOVEL

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Roots of The Banyan Tree is the story of Noor, a teenaged girl whose complex identity pits her against the forces of sectarian violence in her native Lebanon—only to confront xenophobia half way across the world in America. Yet living in New York City also opens Noor to experiences and relationships that will change how she sees herself and her place in the world. Noor's determination to define her identity on her own terms—even when it puts her in grave danger—makes her life anything but ordinary, as does her passionate resolve to hold her family together. Kathryn’s life in Lebanon, along with stories of loved ones there, provided the inspiration for the novel.

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