Pete Najarian

After graduating from Rutgers University in 1958, where he roomed with the poet Robert Pinsky, Pete Najarian was a Social Investigator for the New York City Department of Welfare, where his caseload was in Harlem. He then lived in London for three years, where he taught English Studies in Kingsway Day College, and Film Study for the Education Department of the British Film Institute. He returned to the States when he received the Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University for the academic year 1967-1968. He received an M.A. in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University in 1970, where he studied with his friend, the novelist Leo Litwak. He was a Fulbright Lecturer in Soviet Armenia in the academic year 1988-1989. While in Armenia he helped to recover survivors after the earthquake, and the short work called “The Girl” in his collection "The Great American Loneliness" is about his experience there. He has taught creative writing in San Francisco State University, Wayne State University, Scripps College for Women, University of California at San Diego, University of Hawaii, University of California at Davis, and University of California at Berkeley. He contributed to the Serving House Journal of Literary Arts, and to a compilation titled The Sixties, edited by Peter Stine and published by Wayne State University Press. He received a Grant for Creative Non-fiction from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2000. His works were cited during a discussion of Armenian American literature at a symposium celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Society for Armenian Studies. Najarian is also a plein air painter and a sculptor, and his work has been exhibited in the Artist’s Union in Yerevan, Armenia; in the Hearst Gallery at Saint Mary’s College of California; in the Napa Valley Museum in California; and at Berkeley Public Library. His last four books are illustrated with his drawings and paintings.