A story weaving together the fragments of a woman’s life who organized the chaos of reality into a sensible and livable realm offhandedly called “home” but no one recognized it until she was gone.

"Not a True Story But a Real Story" series is a reflection on individual transformations of collective identity and the concept of home. Armen of Armenia (Ohanyan) ponders why “housecat-like Armenians” didn’t just sit tight within their four walls when they could have become “heroes” by simply staying home.

This is neither a true story nor a real story. But it could be either if fate ever stepped in to deliver a surprising lesson on toxic masculinity.

A peephole view into the kaleidoscopic distortions of other people’s lives where human interaction is set in ways foreign to you and distant from you yet in your city where the “hero” is your friend. A true, but not a real story from the ninth floor, in building 9a, in the Ninth District, the door without the peephole.

Chomalag, which means epidemic in one of the dialects of the Gegharkunik region of Armenia delves into the suspended lives of people in times of an epidemic.

In this new essay for the “True But Not Real” creative writing series, writer and journalist Lusine Hovhannisyan explores the love Armenians have for their homes especially in the context of the recent war in Artsakh: “We love our houses with the skill of a person who has lost their home.”