From her base in northern California, Elmaz Abinader is one of the more luminous and multifaceted Arab American writers of the day, an award-winning artist of Lebanese origin and an educator.

Her creative origins are that of a poet -- beginning with studies at Columbia University, where she received her master of fine arts degree in poetry and a doctorate in creative writing. For her post-doctoral fellowship in the humanities, Abinader worked on what was to be her first major published volume, Children of the Roojme, A Family's Journey From Lebanon. Her adviser was the prominent African American novelist, Nobel literature laureate Toni Morrison

Published in 1991, Children of the Roojme spans four generations and two continents. It traces the Abinaders from their homeland to small-town western Pennsylvania, and the journey of the mind and heart from centuries-old surroundings to a new and unfamiliar land, with different traditions and cultures. A review in the San Francisco Chronicle praised her for conveying "the yearnings and ambivalence of the quintessential American figure, the immigrant, whose story is woven tightly with a sense of connection to the land and the people left behind."

In the course of the 1990s, while teaching creative writing at Mills College in Oakland, California, Abinader has continued to march along her personal creative path.

In addition to a volume of verse, In the Country of My Dreams (1999), her major work has been a performance piece, Country of Origin, which she has presented across the United States and in the Middle East. This three-act one-woman show depicts the lives of a trio of Arab American women and their individual and communal struggles. In it, Abinader becomes her grandmother and mother, and also portrays herself as a young girl. The music fuses age-old Middle Eastern strains with contemporary jazz, with instruments ranging from nai (flute) and oud to drums, violins and saxophones.

Abinader wears the mantle of Arab American writer proudly. In the first place, in her craft circle, she has kept in touch with her colleagues. "At first there was a core group of us that kept in contact with one another all along," she said in a recent interview. "The conference [of Arab American writers] we had in Chicago in October 1999 was a manifestation of something that had been going on for years. Now we have become a bigger group -- people from the [U.S.] South, North, West, people who have immigrated recently and people who have been here a while."

How does she see the state of play of Arab American writers and intellectuals at this point in history?

"We live in a very exciting moment, with a lot of movement. There is a reaching out now, a mixture of traditions, all coming together. For instance, I find myself talking a lot to other Arab writers about magic realism in Latin American writing. We now seem to share an interest in Latin American literature, and see mutual influences going and coming between us."

The trends she sees existing today generally relate to younger writers.

"They set the new trends," she explains. "The poetry slams could be very instrumental for making poetry accessible to the public, for example. They are a mixture of dramatic forms. Creative nonfiction -- memoir, biography -- are now popular, and we very much have a place in that. In terms of the new generation, I think our writers are right there in the mix."

Despite the fact that getting published and having a market appeal remain two of the challenges facing writers in her discipline today, she is quite sanguine regarding the number and quality of contemporary Arab American works on bookshelves and in college courses.

"We have such a rich body of people now. It's a wonderful time to be an Arab American writer."

-- Mofid Deak