Oksana Marafioti
Oksana Marafioti is an American writer and educator of Romani and Armenian descent. She is the author of American Gypsy: A Memoir, which has been translated into Czech.
Biography
Marafioti holds a BA in Film and an MFA in Creative Writing. She is also a classically trained pianist and has studied music, film, and literature in both the United States and Europe.Her works have appeared in Slate, Time,, Immigrant Voices Vol.II, The Los Angeles Times, The Rumpus, and numerous anthologies, and has been featured on NPR, C‑SPAN, and various international media outlets.
She was the recipient of the Library of Congress Kluge Fellowship in 2012–2013 and has presented her research at institutions including the Library of Congress, Columbia University, Harvard University, and Central European University. In 2020, she was awarded the Picador Guest Professorship in Literature and American Studies at the University of Leipzig in Germany. She has received additional fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Nevada Arts Council.
Along with many interviews and panel appearances, Oksana has presented her research on Magical Realism In Soviet Russia at the Library of Congress in 2013 and participated in the C-SPAN panel discussion on race and ethnicity in 2015. In 2018, Oksana founded Lounge Writers, an online creative writing studio that offers classes by award-winning and best-selling authors to help writers of all levels explore and enhance their craft.
In addition to her writing, Marafioti is a frequent speaker on topics related to creative writing, minority representation, and inclusive storytelling.