Cal State Monterey Bay lecturer and author Ava Homa says three recent awards she’s received will help her to remain in the region she now calls home and to continue her writing and teaching.

Within the past year, Homa received a $25,000 Canada Council for the Arts grant, a $10,000 California Arts Council grant and a $5,000 grant from the Arts Council for Monterey County.

The author of “Daughters of Smoke and Fire,” a story of Kurdish women's resistance in Iran. The novel was mentioned in best-book roundups by the Wall Street Journal, the United Kingdom’s  Independent and the Globe and Mail in Canada. It was featured on Roxane Gay’s book club. The novel also received a 2020 Silver Nautilus Book Award for fiction and was on the shortlist for the 2022 William Saroyan International Writing Prize.

Homa refers to herself as a writer and activist. She grew up in the Kurdish region of Iran and she spoke on the plight of the women there at a UN conference in Geneva in 2022. 

She said she brings that same sensibility to the classroom.

“I have strived to turn pain into poetry, oppression into resistance, and racism into fuel,” Homa said. “My role at CSUMB allows me to mentor and inspire the next generation of writers and activists. CSUMB is one of the few creative writing courses that combines creative writing with activism.” 

She began teaching in the Department of Humanities and Communication last fall and has found a community she hopes to be part of for the rest of her life, she said. 

“CSUMB, I feel, is such a good fit for me,” Homa said. “A lot of our students are first-generation immigrants. I think it's important for them to have a first-generation immigrant professor. I feel I can give to them what I wish I had had.”

The recent grant recognition is validating, she said. 

“This recognition makes me feel like I’m not so lonely or even insane for doing what I'm doing,” she said. “It provides foundational support for my writing. They’re helping amplify my voice and broaden my audience.”

Homa said her third book, a novel, is currently being submitted to publishers.