Our Staff

Karine Vann is the editor of the Armenian Weekly. She is a musician who transitioned into journalism while living in the Caucasus for several years. Her work has appeared in Smithsonian.com, The New Food Economy, and a number of other publications. Her critical writings focus primarily on the politics of culture, media analyses, and the environment. She spends her spare time in front of a keyboard, at a farm, or making a fuss about zero waste. If you have comments, questions, pitches, or leads, she can be reached at karine@armenianweekly.com.

Leeza Arakelian is the assistant editor for the Armenian Weekly. She is a formally trained broadcast news writer and a graduate of UCLA and Emerson College. Leeza has written and produced for local and network television news including Boston 25 and Al Jazeera America.

Masha is an artist currently located in Boston. Her childhood was split between Yerevan and Moscow. At the age of five, she returned to Yerevan and began her education at Pushkin School and art education at the Igityan Art Center, and spent her childhood summers in Stepanakert (Karabakh), a sobering postwar region in Armenia. Later, she continued her art studies at the Architect’s Society of Armenia in Yerevan, and in 2009, her family emigrated to Belmont, Mass. She has received her BFA in painting at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. You can learn more about her and see her work at: mashakeryan.com

William Terian is the Armenian Weekly's Senior Artist and illustrator. He donates his talent to help the Armenian Weekly's print meet its artistic needs. Bill, as his friends call him, lives in Michigan, in a small, rural community, outside of Detroit. He attended the Center for Creative Studies and worked for The Detroit News, as an illustrator. Years later, Bill went on to work for the Internal Revenue Service as an illustrator. He spent the next 32 years working for the federal government before retiring. Bill also served as a senior editor, photographer and writer for KTRA (Kensington Trail Riders Assoc.), an equine organization that sponsors equine events and activities. Bill was also a mounted police officer with Oakland County. Later, he went on to serve with the Livingston County Mounted Division. All and all, Bill says it’s been a great life, thanks to God. And he thanks his wife, Araxie, for agreeing to share his time with the community.

Maya Malekian is a current student at Boston University’s College of Communication studying public relations and journalism with an emphasis in broadcast. She also interns for Boston’s Neighborhood News Network as a community reporter. Raised by an Armenian father and Kazakh mother in Glendale, California, Maya stands proud of her multicultural heritage. In her spare time, she loves to travel with her family and friends nationwide and abroad.

Raffi Elliott is a Canadian-born entrepreneur and occasional journalist who likes to ramble on about socioeconomic and political issues in Armenia. He lives in Yerevan with his family. He also holds a masters degree in International Relations.

Anoush Ter Taulian is a graduate of the University of California Berkeley. In 1992, she decided to relocate to Artsakh where she volunteered in the liberation struggle alongside Monte Melkonian. She has depicted the Armenian struggle for freedom in poetry, paintings, videos, and radio. A lifelong activist speaking in schools, churches, and at anti-racism conferences, Anoush continues to bring up current attacks on Artsakh at indigenous, women's, and political conferences.

Arsineh has been living in Armenia on and off since 2001 and has worked on marketing and branding for many clients locally and globally. She currently does all the marketing for Adzoukh restaurant in Yerevan, her husband’s latest venture with his friend and business partner.

C.K. Garabed (a.k.a. Charles Kasbarian) has been active in the Armenian Church and Armenian community organizations all his life. As a writer and editor, he has been a keen observer of, and outspoken commentator on, political and social matters affecting Armenian Americans. He has been a regular contributor to the Armenian Reporter and the AGBU Literary Quarterly, “ARARAT.” For 20 years, Garabed has been a regular contributor to the Armenian Weekly. He produces a weekly column called “Uncle Garabed's Notebook,” in which he presents an assortment of tales, anecdotes, poems, riddles, and trivia; for the past 10 years, each column has contained a deconstruction of an Armenian surname. He believes his greatest accomplishment in life, and his contribution to the Armenian nation, has been the espousing of Aghavni, and the begetting of Antranig and Lucine.

Harut Sassounian is the publisher of The California Courier, a weekly newspaper based in Glendale, Calif. He is the president of the United Armenian Fund, a coalition of the seven largest Armenian-American organizations. He has been decorated by the president and prime minister of the Republic of Armenia, and the heads of the Armenian Apostolic and Catholic churches. He is also the recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.

Garen Yegparian is a fat, bald guy who has too much to say and do for his own good. So, you know he loves mouthing off weekly about anything he damn well pleases to write about that he can remotely tie in to things Armenian. He's got a checkered past: principal of an Armenian school, project manager on a housing development, ANC-WR Executive Director, AYF Field worker (again on the left coast), Operations Director for a telecom startup, and a City of LA employee most recently (in three different departments so far). Plus, he's got delusions of breaking into electoral politics, meanwhile participating in other aspects of it and making sure to stay in trouble. His is a weekly column that appears originally in Asbarez, but has been republished to the Armenian Weekly for many years.