Marineh Khachadour was born in Yerevan, the capital of the Republic of Armenia. She immigrated to the United States in 1980 where after learning English at a community college, she continued studies and earned a BA in Liberal Studies/Political Science from CaliforniaState University, Northridge and an MA in International Educational Development from Lesley College, MA. She has taught elementary school in Los Angeles, CA for 19 years. Her early poetry and essays in her native Armenian language have been published in Armenian newspapers and literary magazines both in Armenia and in the United States. She was one of the founding contributors to the “80-ies” Armenian language literary magazine published in Glendale, California from 1986 -1988, and was awarded second place for poetry in the literary competition by Armenian Allied Arts Association. Ms. Khachadour compiled and edited Crossroads, a cross-cultural supplement to Lraber, the only diaspora Armenian newspaper that was distributed in Soviet Armenia in 1989 prior to her relocation to Armenia after it gained independence in 1992. She has been an outspoken anti-violence activist and an advocate of peace and gender equality serving as the first Gender In Development expert at United Nations Development Program, Armenia from 1995-1997. She currently lives and teaches in Pasadena, CA and participates in creative writing workshops at The Writing Studio in Los Angeles working on a historical novel based on the life of her great grandfather, an immigrant laborer at Indiana Steel Mills 1920 -1963, who returned to Soviet Armenia in 1963 and was reunited with the family that he had left behind for forty three years.