Saïd Sayrafiezadeh is a 2026 recipient of an American Academy of Arts & Letters Award in Literature. He is the author of two story collections, American Estrangement, a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize, and Brief Encounters With the Enemy, a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Fiction Prize, as well as the memoir When Skateboards Will Be Free, which was selected as one of the 10 best books of the year by Dwight Garner of The New York Times.

His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and The Best American Short Stories. He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award for nonfiction and a Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers’ fiction fellowship.

He lives in New York City with his wife, the artist Karen Mainenti, and teaches creative writing at New York University, where he received an outstanding teaching award. He also leads the creative nonfiction track in Hunter College's MFA program.