Nav | ILIE SHIRIN

Ilie Shirin (she/her) is a German-Afghan and a second year MFA candidate for Literary Translation. She is passionate about theater and performance and loves writing little skits. 

Teenager | DEVANSHI KHETARPAL

Devanshi Khetarpal is a Truman Capote and Sonny Mehta Fellow in Fiction at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Inklette Magazine, and served as a Poetry Reader for The Iowa Review. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in The Master's Review, Indiana Review, Pleiades, Suspect, Public Books, Poetry at Sangam, and The Bombay Literary Magazine, among others. Devanshi holds a Master's in Comparative Literature from New York University, where she specialized in Italian Studies. Her poem received an Honorable Mention for the 2024 Prufer Poetry Prize by Pleiades Magazine, and her fiction and poetry was longlisted for the 2023 Toto Award for Creative Writing in English. Her work has received support from the Juniper Writing Institute at UMass Amherst, Bread Loaf Translator's Conference, and the Yale Writers' Workshop. Devanshi is from Bhopal, India. Website: www.devanshikhetarpal.co 

Teenager | EMMA SCHROEDER*

This is Emma’s 4th year as a theater major and her 3rd year acting in New Play Festival. She’s very excited to be working on this new play and given a chance to learn about a character and culture she is not familiar with. Emma feels honored for the opportunity to play one of the teenagers and hopes everyone who watches the performance walks away with a piece of knowledge they hadn’t known before, whether that be about themselves or the world around them. 

Teenager | ALYSSA SANTOLERI*

Alyssa Santoleri is thrilled to be acting for her second semester at the University of Iowa! A first year creative writing and theatre arts double major, she's always loved theater. From playing Ernestina in Hello, Dolly! to Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, she absolutely loves every opportunity to perform and is so excited for whatever comes next!