Dilruba Ahmed named Dempsey Writer in Residence

Dilruba Ahmed has been named the Deborah Dempsey Resident at the Springside Chestnut Hill Academy. Established in 2000, the residency was created to honor Deborah Dempsey, former chair of the English Department at Springside School, upon her retirement from teaching. Since the inception of this program, hundreds of students, as well as English Department faculty, have benefited enormously from the access to working writers who generously share their expertise and enthusiasm for writing.

Ms. Ahmed’s first collection of poems, Dhaka Dust, won the 2010 Bakeless Poetry Prize from the prestigious Breadloaf Writer’s Conference. A review of the collection in The New York Times Book Review said of Ahmed: “She understands that she’s dust … dust whipped across continents to land in, of all places, Ohio; dark-skinned dust to be spurned, shunned or boot-heeled; immigrant Muslim dust that is feared but also fears.”

She earned BPhil and MAT degrees from the University of Pittsburgh and an MFA from Warren Wilson College. She has taught in Chatham University’s Low-Residency MFA program. Ms. Ahmed will visit SCH Academy on April 15th and 16th.

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