Faith Adiele’s memoir about becoming the first black Buddhist nun of Thailand, Meeting Faith, received the PEN Beyond Margins Award for Best Memoir. She’s the author of several other books for which she’s also received numerous honors, including the Millennium Award from Creative Nonfiction, a UNESCO International Artists Bursary, and a fellowship to the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada.  She now teaches creative writing at the California College of the Arts.

“My first book, Meeting Faith, found its home in the Nonfiction Writing Program. The program taught me to be innovative and fearless about structure, and to work tirelessly to determine what form my story wanted to take.  I also found my home in the program; my Nonfiction Writing Program classmates and I formed a travel writers' group that shared work, ran retreats and presented together for a decade after we graduated. I also learned the business of writing from the faculty, including how to talk about my work, write a book proposal, apply for job, design a graduate course, and teach.”