WRITER

Laura Rink
writingsBlog
ABOUT

Laura

In 2021, I graduated with an MFA degree in Creative Writing from the Rainier Writing Workshop, a three-year low-residency MFA program at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington. In that program, I completed two manuscripts tied to my exploration into how my grandmother and her two sisters survived the Armenian Genocide. My critical paper explores how authors write into silence, the private silence of untold stories and the public silence of suppressed stories. In my creative thesis, a family memoir, photographs, primary documents, and historical fact intersect with memories and speculation to create a personal story within the larger public archive.

WORK IN PROGRESS

Matilda’s Silence: The Search For My Armenian Family’s Story

My grandmother Matilda Haigazn survived the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923, which took one and a half million Armenian lives, men, women, and children. Matilda rarely spoke of her experiences and the family she left behind in Turkey. Not knowing what happened has always haunted me. This manuscript is my investigative journey to find my extended family and their story, including the historical context in which their lives took place.

Blog

Birds and Books

Birds and Books

In my February 2025 blog, “Delights and Joys,” I wrote about my Daily Delights journal. The journal rests on my nightstand and every night I write in it one or a few things that delighted me that day. Many of my daily delights are creatures and most of those creatures...

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We-moirs and Family Memoirs 

We-moirs and Family Memoirs 

Noemi, Matilda, Hilda, and Silvia Haigazn, 1926. . When I think about family memoirs, I think about Michael Ondaatje's Running in the Family, Jeanette Walls' The Glass Castle, and Deborah Miranda's Bad Indians, to name just three. I think about a...

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Chuckanut Writers Conference

Chuckanut Writers Conference

Highlights, Past and Future Community is my number one reason for attending writing conferences. To meet up with local writer friends and make new ones. To be around people who get what being a writer is all about. To share in the struggles and the flow, to support...

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