Saïd Sayrafiezadeh is a memoirist, playwright and fiction writer. He also teaches creative writing at Columbia University and New York University.Sayrafiezadeh received the 2010 Whiting Award for his memoir, "When Skateboards Will Be Free." His fist book, "Brief Encounters With the Enemy," was published in 2014, and was short-listed for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for debut fiction.