News Archive
Professor Hoss Leads Conversation with Poet and Novelist Kaveh Akbar
02/04/2025
IU McKinney Professor Aila Hoss led a conversation with poet and novelist Kaveh Akbar after his reading at Indiana Landmarks. The event took place January 28.
Kaveh Akbar is an Iranian-American author and creative writing professor at the University of Iowa. Born in Tehran, Akbar grew up in the Midwest, including many years in Indiana. He is an alumnus of Purdue University and Butler University. In the photo, Professor Hoss, left, talks with Akbar.
Professor Hoss describes Akbar’s writing as “complex and imaginative while still being accessible to both the serious and casual reader.” The event drew in several hundred attendees. Akbar discussed the themes of his writing, his inspirations in literature and pop culture, and the profound impact of his recovery from substance use disorder on his work.
Professor Hoss began her academic career at IU McKinney in 2017 as a visiting professor and rejoined the faculty as an associate professor in 2022. She teaches and researches at the intersection of health law and federal Indian law. Courses taught by Professor Hoss include law and public health, introduction to health law, property, federal Indian law. She is an active member of the Indiana bar and a proud Iranian-American.
In addition to her work at IU McKinney, Professor Hoss is a lover of literature and a creative writer. Her first piece of creative nonfiction was published last year in The McNeese Review and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her first short story will be published this year. She describes her creative writing as complementary to her academic work explaining that it “deepens her understanding of the human impact of law, legal systems, and legal institutions.”
Akbar’s novel, Martyr!, is a New York Times bestseller, the 2024 recipient of the Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize for Fiction, a 2024 Discover Prize finalist, and a 2024 National Book Award finalist. His poems appear in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Paris Review, Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. He is the author of two poetry collections: Pilgrim Bell, published in 2021; Calling a Wolf a Wolf, published in 2017; and a chapbook, Portrait of the Alcoholic, published in 2016.
The event was organized by Tomorrow Bookstore in partnership with Indiana Humanities and Butler MFA in Creative Writing.
