About the Author
Noga Khen is a writer and aspiring author working on her debut novel. Born in 1999, she moved from Israel to the Pacific Northwest as a small child, where she found a love in fantasy novels with heroes who challenge conventions for the right cause, themes which inspire her to this day. She also discovered a passion for history and how people across space and time are remarkably similar to people today, and how those belonging to marginalized groups have always existed and stood strong against societal expectations.
Noga has been writing as a hobby since her youth. Her first published work was an essay about her late mother written for the 2018 Cancer Unwrapped writing contest, which was announced as one of the winners. Since then, she continued to dabble in personal short stories while studying at the Culinary Institute of America, where she discovered a fascination with food history and the world of spirits and cocktails. After graduating Magna Cum Laude with a degree in Food Business Management, she moved to Chicago and began working at a high-end cocktail bar; the stories she heard and experiences with fine spirits left her wondering how best to combine her multiple passions — hospitality, history, and writing.
Currently, she is revising her debut novel The Telford Liar, a historical drama centered on a Jewish student faking her identity to skirt around antisemitic quotas in mid-20th century American universities. As a Jewish woman in the United States, the topic of American antisemitism is one she wishes to highlight, particularly in today’s tense climate.
She also spends time working on Madeira, a war thriller centered on a bartender who becomes a spy for the Allied Powers. Being a descendant of Holocaust survivors herself, World War 2 is deeply personal for Noga, and she hopes to do the survivors, victims, and veterans justice while paying homage to those who fought back.