Alyan, Hala: - Hala Alyan is the author of the novels Salt Houses--winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Arab American Book Award, and a finalist for the Chautauqua Prize--and The Arsonists' City, a finalist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize. She is also the author of five highly acclaimed collections of poetry, including The Twenty-Ninth Year and The Moon That Turns You Back. Her work has been published by The New Yorker, The Academy of American Poets, The New York Times, The Guardian, and Guernica. She lives in Brooklyn with her family, where she works as a clinical psychologist and professor at New York University.