Noel Kalenian was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Grand Junction, Colorado, a high desert community on the Utah border. His fiction and poetry have appeared in Fourteen Hills, Skidrow Penthouse, South Dakota Review, zaum, Blister Packs: A Love Bunni Press Collection and other publications. He has received master’s degrees from San Francisco State University and the University of Denver, where he graduated with honors.

His paper “Cultural and National Identity in the Armenian Diaspora” was awarded the Undergraduate History Paper of the Year award at the University of Colorado at Boulder and published in The Colorado Historian. Newspaper articles, websites and an art installation have cited his local history blogs written for libraries in Denver and Grand Junction. His research done as a librarian has been credited in multiple publications.

He is currently working on the manuscripts of two novels and a poetry collection. His future plans include translating the stories of Hamsdegh from Western Armenian.

He enjoys making up stories to amuse his kids, coaching and playing soccer, reading in English and Spanish, walks and bike rides around town, hiking in the high desert and mountains, and gardening or building things in the yard.