Garinè Boyajian Isassi is a recovering journalist and author of the novel Start with the Backbeat, which earned the IPPY Silver Medal for contemporary fiction and was a finalist in both the USA Best Book Awards and the Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Additional publications include the weekly humor column, “Mom in the Middle;” short stories in the anthologies This is What America Looks Like (2021), America’s Future (2025), and Grace in Love (2023); and various online platforms.

She won a Grant from the Arts & Humanities Council of Montgomery County and was accepted into the George Washington University JMM Writing Workshop in 2022. Garinè was an Armenian International Literary Alliance Mentee in 2024. Garinè is proud of her Armenian American heritage and often draws upon that experience in her writing. She currently lives in Maryland, where she works in marketing communications and serves as the Workshops Chair for the Gaithersburg Book Festival.