On Tuesday, Feb. 2nd, students and faculty gathered on campus in Tuohy Hall for a literary event hosted by SJNY International Student Services & the ACES program. Hala Alyan, a writer, clinical psychologist and professor at New York University shared her work, which explores identity, displacement and how stories are told to keep us going.
She began the reading by thanking the audience for their attendance and acknowledging how great it was to have the opportunity to share her story.
“I’m very grateful to be here. It means I get to read something I’ve actually never read aloud before,” Alyan said.
Introduced by Mik Larson, Associate Dean for International Students and English Language Programs at SJNY, Alyan began with an excerpt from her memoir, I’ll Tell You When I’m Home. During this reading, she reflected on what storytelling meant to her and how it “frames the journey she’s on.” Alyan touches on Shahrazad, an ancient figure from the fairy tale “One Thousand and One Nights,” who is referenced in many various forms of media ranging from literature to film and visual art.
Alyan blended this experience with personal memory, explaining how she always had to reinvent herself.
“It was my eighth school, fifth city and third country in 10 years,” she explained.
The Brooklyn event, hosted in Tuohy Hall, was filled with SJNY students, staff and faculty.
Alyan touched on how reinvention brought erasure and how parts of ourselves may remain buried but never fully leave us. She further explained that stories are not just something to be told, but it is used to help ourselves move forward.
She also shared several poems including one written for a friend, which was framed as a dating profile. These poems brought humor to the room and lightened up the mood in contrast to the somber, more heartfelt stories in her memoir.
During the Q&A session, she spoke about her writing journey and the troubles she faced while trying to work across genres. She also discussed writing nonfiction while dealing with difficult experiences such as grief and loss, and how the structure of her memoir eventually became clear when she wrote despite her situation. She wrote without waiting for everything to “settle.”
“This book is the opposite of every piece of writing advice we give writing students,” Alyan said. “I didn’t wait for things to settle. I wrote from inside it.”
The event ended with enthusiastic applause from the audience. Thanks to Alyan, students left with a greater sense of storytelling, understanding that it isn’t to be used alone for academic purposes, but can also be a powerful tool that shapes identity and creates connections.
Photos taken by Peter Lin, Ph.D.
