Virtual Event: Maggie P Chang, Mika Song, Dan Abdo, and Jason Patterson present graphica for early readers
2022-01-26 18:00 - 19:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | WA
This is a virtual event taking place via Zoom Webinar.
Third Place Books welcomes Maggie P Chang, Mika Song, Dan Abdo, and Jason Patterson for a fun-filled, action-packed presentation on their graphic novels for early readers!
This event will be broadcast live on Zoom. Registering will provide you with a unique access link in an email. During the event, you can ask questions using the Q&A feature, or chat with fellow attendees. A recording of the event will be made available and emailed to all who register.
This author talk is free! You can sustain our author series by purchasing a copy of the featured book.

Jonathan Smolin & Alaa Al Aswany: Virtual Event Elliott Bay Bookstore
2022-01-26 18:00 - 19:30 | WA
Ihsan Abdel Kouddous (1919-1990) was an iconic, hugely important writer in Egypt and beyond, during his lifetime and beyond. The author of numerous major novels, his work has been too little known in English and to readers here. Thanks to translator Jonathan Smolin, professor of Asian Studies at Dartmouth and translator from the Arabic of other such writers as Abdelilah Hamdouchi and Youssef Fadel, his work is now more readily available, this in the form of I Do Not Sleep (American University of Cairo Press), a sixty-year-old novel which shocked readers when it first appeared in the 1950s. Betrayal, desire, and family drama are all part of this, the narrative being in the form of a letter written by a central protagonist.
“What sets Ihsan Abdel Kouddous apart is his ability to combine, on the page, the different overlapping threads of politics and society.”―Al-Shorouk.
“The novel I Do Not Sleep represents a turning point in Ihsan Abdel Kouddous’s narratorial style.”―Hafriyat.
Slated to be with Jonathan Smolin to discuss I Do Not Sleep is Alaa Al Aswany, one of the most acclaimed writers – Egyptian and otherwise – working today. His novels include The Yacoubian Building, Chicago, and, most recently, The Automobile Club of Egypt. T​​he recipient of numerous international literary awards, he has had his books translated into over thirty languages.

Misna: The Experimental Issue Virtual Launch
2022-01-30 09:00 - 17:00 | WA
Event details

On Sunday, January 30, join Mizna in launching The Experimental Issue with TWENTY ONE AUTHORS.
Featured readers include Mays Albaik, Tamara Al-Qaisi-Coleman, Darius Atefat-Peckman, Hajjar Baban, Doris Bittar, Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán, Mohammed El-Kurd, Tracy Fuad, Farah Kader, Magdeline Maher, Khashayar Mohammadi, Yasmine Rukia, hana roz, Trish Salah, Glenn Shaheen, Nadia Shihab, Fargo Tbakhi, Mohamed Tonsy, Sarah Sophia Yanni, Omar Zahzah + Issam Zineh.
This event takes place virtually at 11 am CT, RSVP required.
RSVP HERE

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Tamara Al-Qaisi-Coleman (she/her) is a bi-racial Muslim writer, historian, poet, and artist. Her first book of poetry “The Raven, The Bayou, & The Willow ” is forthcoming through FlowerSong Press Spring 2022. She is a Brooklyn Poets Fellow (2020), a Rad(ical) Poetry Fellow (2020), and a poet for the Houston Grand Opera & MFAH’s event “The Art of Intimacy.” (2019) She was nominated this year for a Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Net anthology. Her work can be found in (Art) WORDPEACE and Mixed Magazine, (Fiction) Crack the Spine Literary Magazine, (Poetry) Boundless 2021: The Anthology of the Rio Grande River Valley International Poetry Festival, and others.
Hajjar Baban is a Pakistan-born Afghan Kurdish Poet. A 2021 PD Soros Fellow and current MFA in Poetry candidate at the University of Virginia, she has poems appearing in BAHR Magazine and the Southeast Review. You can read her work here: hajjarbaban.com
Doris Bittar is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice spans painting, photography, installation, video, sound and performance. Bittar participated with Gulf Labor in the Venice Biennale in 2015 and other international and national exhibits. She won the Alexandria, Egypt Biennial 2nd prize and various awards, grants and recognitions in the United States and abroad.
Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán is author of Archipiélagos; Antes y después del Bronx: Lenapehoking; and South Bronx Breathing Lessons. A Tulsa Artist Fellow and National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, he is editor of Yellow Medicine Review’s international queer Indigenous issue; and co-editor of Movement Research Performance Journal’s Native dance/movement/performance issue.
Tracy Fuad is the author of about:blank, chosen by Claudia Rankine as the 2020 winner of the AWP Donald Hall Prize and published in 2021 by the University of Pittsburgh Press. She is a graduate of the Rutgers-Newark MFA Program and a 2021-22 Poetry Fellow at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, and teaches poetry at the Berlin Writers’ Workshop.
Farah Kader is a New York-based public health analyst. She was a recipient of the 2017 Palestinian Youth Movement’s Ghassan Kanafani Writing Prize and a 2019 Hopwood Graduate Award for poetry. Kader’s work has been published in Mizna, Orion Magazine, Electric Literature, and Narrative Magazine.
Khashayar Mohammadi (He/They) is a queer, Iranian born, Toronto-based Poet, Writer and Translator. They are the winner of the Vallum Poetry Prize 2021 and author of four poetry Chapbooks. Their debut poetry collection “Me, You, Then Snow” is out with Gordon Hill Press.
Yasmine Rukia is a first generation Lebanese-American Shia experimental poet. Her work exploring the nexus between hyphens, breaths and beliefs can be found in the Black Warrior Review, Mizna, Cliterature, The Gordon Square Review, The Belt, Jaffat el-aqlam and others. She lives in Dearborn Michigan with her two sons.
Glenn Shaheen is the author of four books. He is the Executive Director of the Radius of Arab American Writers and teaches at Prairie View A&M University.
Fargo Tbakhi is a queer Palestinian performance artist, a Taurus, and a cool breeze. Find more at fargotbakhi.com.
Mohamed Tonsy is a queer Egyptian writer, ceramicist and a PhD graduate of Edinburgh University. His writing has recently appeared in Epoch Press’s ‘Transitions’ issue, e.i.i.i zine’s ‘Navel’ issue, is set to appear in Mizna’s unthemed Summer 2022 issue, and has been shortlisted for MFest’s 2021 Short Story Competition. His debut novel — You Must Believe in Spring — is set to be published by Hajar Press, late 2022.
Sarah Sophia Yanni is a Mexican-Egyptian writer, editor, and educator. She is the author of the chapbook ternura / tenderness (Bottlecap Press, 2019) and was a Finalist for BOMB Magazine’s 2020 Poetry Contest, Poetry Online’s 2021 Launch Prize, and the Hayden’s Ferry Review Inaugural Poetry Contest. She currently serves as Managing Editor of Tiding House and holds a Faculty Fellowship at CalArts.
Omar Zahzah is a writer, poet, independent scholar, and organizer of Lebanese-Palestinian descent whose creative, critical, political, academic, and journalistic writings have appeared in or are forthcoming from various publications including Narrative magazine, Mizna, FIYAH, Electronic Intifada, Middle East Eye, Arab Studies Quarterly, Full Stop, and the New York Times. Several of Omar’s poems were featured in the anthology, Beside the City of Angels: An Anthology of Long Beach Poetry. In 2016, Omar’s chapbook 13 Almost Love Poems was released, and Omar’s chapbook, DEATH, is forthcoming from swallow::tale press. Omar is the Education and Advocacy Coordinator for Eyewitness Palestine as well as a member of the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) and the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI.) Omar holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from UCLA.
Issam Zineh is a Palestinian-American poet and scientist. He is author of the poetry collection Unceded Land (forthcoming summer 2022, Trio House Press) and the chapbook The Moment of Greatest Alienation (Ethel, 2021). His poems appear or are forthcoming in AGNI, Pleiades, Gulf Coast, Guernica, and elsewhere. Find him at issamzineh.com or on Twitter @izineh.

Powell's Books Presents Simon Jacobs in Conversation With Mona Awad (Zoom)
2022-02-01 17:00 - 19:00 | WA
Eerie, hypnotic, and shot through with dark comedy, Simon Jacobs’s String Follow (MCD x FSG) is a razor-sharp suburban Gothic that cuts deep, exposing the sweating, bleeding truth of how kids become adults in 21st-century America. In spellbinding, incisive prose, Jacobs blends the startlingly original and the uncannily familiar, revealing the dark chaos that lurks under the surface of Midwestern suburbia.

Jacobs will be joined in conversation by Mona Awad, author of All’s Well, Bunny, and 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl.

Time

Virtual Event: Olga Tokarczuk and Jennifer Croft with Rabih Alameddine — The Books of Jacob
2022-02-19 10:00 - 13:00 | WA
Third Place Books is proud to partner with Community Bookstore and the Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith to welcome Nobel Prize–winner Olga Tokarczuk and her translator Jennifer Croft for a discussion of their latest book, The Books of Jacob—the astonishing, 900-page volume from Poland’s most well-regarded novelist. Tokarczuk and Croft will be joined by Rabih Alameddine, National Book Award finalist and the author, most recently, of The Wrong End of the Telescope.
This event will be broadcast live on Brookline Booksmith’s Zoom platform. Registering will provide you with a unique access link in an email within 48 hours of the event. During the event, you can ask questions using the Q&A feature, or chat with fellow attendees. A recording of the event will be made available and emailed to all who register.
This author talk is free! You can sustain our author series by purchasing a copy of the featured book. Order a book-bundled ticket at the link below to received a signed bookplate by the author. Supply is limited.

The Water We Carry: Struggle, Daring, Dignity and Joy (virtual)
2022-03-05 14:00 - 16:00 | WA
International Women’s Month Poetry & Music with Claudia Castro Luna, Hilary Field, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Cindy Williams Gutiérrez, Deema Shehabi.
Five women – four poets and a classical guitarist come together to celebrate women’s poems and stories of struggle and joy. This virtual group reading and performance brings together distinct and distinguished poets reflecting an array of international backgrounds along with music, all in acknowledgement of this being International Women’s Month.
Going alphabetically, this should all include: Claudia Castro Luna is a Seattle/Duwamish Lands-based poet who is an Academy of American Poets Poet Laureate Fellow, a recent Washington State Poet and Seattle’s first Civic Poet. Her originally being from El Salvador, ‘living in English and Spanish,’ informs her work, including the poetry collections This City, Killing Marías, and One River, A Thousand Voices, and a powerful new collection, Cipota Under the Moon, coming in April from Tia Chucha. Her prose is also in the anthology, There’s A Revolution Outside, My Love.
Hilary Field is an internationally known performing and recording artist who has garnered widespread praise for her work with classical guitar. Her debut album, Music of Spain and Latin America, won Classical Album of the Year, awarded by the National Association of Independent Record Distributors. She has performed in festivals throughout the Americas and has taught at both Seattle Pacific University and Pacific Lutheran University.
**Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is a Seattle-area-based poet, essayist, and translator who has read and been part of group readings at Elliott Bay numerous times in the past – including readings from the Arabic. Her first full collection of poems, Water & Salt (Red Hen Press), won the 2018 Washington State Book Award. She is also author of the chapbooks, Arab in Newsland, and Letters from the Interior. She has also received an Artist Trust fellowship and the 2019 Robert Watson Literary Prize, among other honors.
Portland poet, playwright, producer, and educator Cindy Williams Gutiérrez is the author, most recently, of Inlay with Nacre: The Names of Forgotten Women (WIllow), as well as the earlier poetry collection, the small claim of bones. She has received numerous awards and honors, and is cofounder of Los Porteños, Portland Latinx writers’ collective, and the Confluence Poets in the Methow Valley. Her newest stage work, IN THE NAME OF FORGOTTEN WOMEN, a choreopoem, opens at CoHo on March 25.
**Kuwait-born poet, teacher, editor, and activist Deema Shehabi, presently living in California, is the author of Thirteen Departures from the Moon (Press 53), and co-author with Marilyn Hacker of Diasp/renga: A Collaboration in Alternating Renga. She is also vice-president of the vital writers group, RAWI – Radius of Arab-American Writers.
This should be special: please join us!

L. AlHathloul, U. Mishra-Newbery & R. Green | LOUJAIN DREAMS OF SUNFLOWERS
2022-03-29 15:00 - 16:00 | WA
Click here to register for this virtual event.
“I know I will fly. Not immediately, but definitely.”
Every night Loujain dreams of flying to the carpet of a million sunflowers. She dreams of the deep blue of the sky, the green of the stems and leaves, and the yellow of flower petals. But Loujain lives in a place where girls aren’t allowed to fly, so she will never get to see the magnificent colors of the field of sunflowers in person. With the support of her family and her own courage, Loujain must turn her impossible dream into a reality. Based on the true story of Loujain AlHathloul and her successful campaign to lift Saudi Arabia’s ban on women driving, Loujain Dreams of Sunflowers: A Story Inspired by Loujain AlHathloul reminds us to strive for the changes we want to see—and to never take for granted women’s and girls’ freedoms.
Registrants will receive a link to a downloadable teacher’s guide.
Lina Alhathloul is a women’s rights activist and the sister of Loujain AlHathloul. On behalf of Loujain, Lina appears in the media and international events. This is her debut book.
Uma Mishra-Newbery is a global social justice and women’s rights leader. She is the former executive director of Women’s March Global. This is her debut book.
Rebecca Green is the bestselling illustrator of the picture book Becoming a Good Creature and the author/illustrator of How to Make Friends with a Ghost.
A Women’s History Month event for children ages 5-10, their families, and interested adults

The Other End of the Sea w/ author Alison Glick
2022-04-03 16:30 - 18:30 | WA
Summer, 1981—Following the death of her father, Becky Klein, an adventurous, naïve young woman from the Midwest, sets out for the Middle East, in search of her Jewish roots. She discovers something more, in a Gaza garden near a refugee camp by the sea. There she befriends the garden’s owner, a Palestinian activist who has served time in Israeli jails. As their relationship grows, Rebecca finds herself drawn into a story of roots unlike the one she had imagined.
The West Bank, Cairo, Yarmouk, Benghazi, Beirut—before long, their romance careens across a region in flames, child in tow, wrestling with conflicting maps of love, family and home. Moving, yet brimming with flashes of humor, Alison Glick’s tangle with the search for purpose and commitment yields a bracing, radiant story for these times.
Join Friends of Sabeel North America in what promises to be a stirring conversation with author Alison Glick.

Author Visit: Hudda Ibrahim: What Color is My Hijab?
2022-04-27 14:00 - 16:00 | WA
Join Somali American author Hudda Ibrahim as she shares her picture book, What Color is My Hijab?
Please register.
You will be emailed a link no later than one hour before the program start time. If you do not see an email, check your Junk or Spam folder.
Reasonable accommodation for people with disabilities is available by request. Email access@kcls.org at least seven days before the event. Automated closed captioning is always available for online events.

Book Talk: You Have Not Yet Been Defeated with Sanaa Seif and Sharif Abdel Kouddous (Zoom)
2022-04-29 15:00 - 17:00 | WA
The Palestinian Feminist Collective proudly presents

YOU HAVE NOT YET BEEN DEFEATED
A book talk with Egyptian revolutionary, Sanaa Seif & renowned, independent Egyptian journalist, Sharif Abdel Kouddous

Friday, April 29th
6:00 pm EDT // 5:00 pm CDT // 3:00 pm PDT
REGISTER HERE

The PFC invites you to a virtual book talk with Egyptian revolutionary, Sanaa Seif, former political prisoner and sister of Alaa Abd el-Fattah, as she discusses his long anticipated book, “YOU HAVE NOT YET BEEN DEFEATED” with renowned, independent Egyptian journalist, Sharif Abdel Kouddous.

This is a solidarity event with political prisoners in Egypt in affirmation of the power of feminist organizing in the face of repression and counter-revolution in Egypt. The PFC stands with our Egyptian comrades and people across the globe facing the heteropatriarchal, imperial systems of militarized policing, prisons, and repression.

YOU HAVE NOT YET BEEN DEFEATED embodies ideas of protest and freedom of expression from the world-renowned Egyptian political prisoner and activist collected in English for the first time. With a foreword by Naomi Klein.

“The text you are holding is living history.” — Naomi Klein, from the forward
Alaa Abd el-Fattah is arguably the most high-profile political prisoner in Egypt, if not the Arab world, rising to international prominence during the revolution of 2011. A fiercely independent thinker who fuses politics and technology in powerful prose, an activist whose ideas represent a global generation that has only known struggle against a failing system, a public intellectual with the rare courage to offer personal, painful honesty, Alaa’s written voice came to symbolize much of what was fresh, inspiring and revolutionary about the uprisings that have defined the last decade. Collected here for the first time in English is a selection of his essays, social media posts, and interviews from 2011 until the present. He has spent the majority of those years in prison, where many of these pieces were written. Together, they present not only a unique account from the frontline of a decade of global upheaval but a catalog of ideas about other futures those upheavals could yet reveal.

Sanaa Seif with Sharif Abdel Kouddous (in person)
2022-05-02 18:00 - 20:00 | Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 10th Avenue, Seattle, 98122, United States
Making this Seattle visit as part of a national, in-person tour around the U.S. are Egyptian activist, film editor, and one-time political prisoner Sanaa Seif, along with Cairo-based independent journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous. They will be discussing the extraordinary book of Sanaa Seif’s imprisoned brother Alaa Abd El-Fattah’s writings, You Have Not Been Defeated: Selected Works (Seven Stories). Alaa Abd El-Fattah is probably the highest profile political prisoner currently being held in Egypt – one of many, however, including Sanaa Seif herself until recently.
“You can’t jail a revolution. Alaa Abd el-Fattah is proof. These essays, many handwritten and smuggled from a prison cell, breathe life into the 2011 moment, what shaped its revolutionary possibilities and terrible betrayals. This book is a memory of Tahrir Square that still reverberates like a heartbeat throughout the world.”– Nick Estes.
“In a totalitarian system where even ideas are punishable with imprisonment, this collection of essays from one of Egypt’s most high-profile political prisoners is like an oasis in a desolate landscape. Part manifesto, part memoir, and part record of some of Abd El-Fattah’s trial scenes that are more than worthy of Kafka, the book contains passages smuggled out from Cairo’s infamous Tora prison.”– Ruth Michaelson, The Guardian.
“Written with blood and fire, You Have Not Yet Been Defeated is a brilliant and devastating testament by one of Egypt’s great revolutionaries.”– Molly Crabapple.
This is scheduled to be a live/in-person program at Elliott Bay Book Company. Registration is optional.

The Art of the Short Story: Small Odysseys (Zoom)
2022-05-03 17:30 - 19:00 | WA
Small Odysseys celebrates the latest gems of contemporary short fiction–striking and joyful, the collection elucidates the character of the current literary landscape. Join Small Odysseys’ editor and contributors as they discuss this thrilling and impactful collection of works.

Authors participating include:
Edwidge Danticat, Omar El Akkad, Hannah Tinti, and J. Robert Lennon

Virtual Poetry Book Event: Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza
2022-05-07 12:00 - 13:00 | WA
Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet and librarian who grew up in Gaza; he will be in conversation with best-selling author Mary Karr to celebrate his debut book of poems, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza published by City Lights Books.

“Mosab Abu Toha is an astonishingly gifted young poet from Gaza, almost a seer with his eloquent lyrical vernacular … His poems break my heart and awaken it, at the same time. I feel I have been waiting for his work all my life.”–Naomi Shihab Nye
In this poetry debut Mosab Abu Toha writes about his life under siege in Gaza, first as a child, and then as a young father. A survivor of four brutal military attacks, he bears witness to a grinding cycle of destruction and assault, and yet, his poetry is inspired by a profound humanity.
Mosab founded the Edward Said Library (the first English-language library in Gaza), a project that MECA supports.

Comics Club: Huda Fahmy Author Visit (KCLS online)
2022-05-10 17:00 - 18:00 | WA
Love comics? Meet Huda Fahmy, author of the very funny book, Huda F Are You?. She will talk about her graphic novel and how she created it.
Please register.
You will be emailed a link no later than one hour before the program start time. If you do not see an email, check your Junk or Spam folder.

Author Voices with Malaka Gharib
2022-05-11 19:30 - 20:30 | WA
Join a discussion with Malaka Gharib, author of I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir, winner of a 2020 Arab American Book Award.
Available for purchase from Third Place Books.
Sponsored by the King County Library System Foundation.

Please register at: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/aut…
Reasonable accommodation for people with disabilities is available by request. Email access@kcls.org at least seven days before the event. Automated closed captioning is always available for online events.

Indigenous Voices from Turtle Island on the Changing Earth: Town Hall (virtual)
2022-05-17 18:00 - 19:30 | WA
It can be easy to settle into the narrative that short-sighted, individualist behavior is a natural trait of all humankind, especially when considering how the human impact on the Earth has only recently become apparent to so many. But this narrative is not shared by all people and cultures; for the Indigenous people of the world, radical alteration of the planet – and of life itself – is a story that is many generations long. It is also a story of adaptation, perseverance, courage, and resourcefulness in the face of genocide and destruction.
In an innovative work of research and reportage, We Are the Middle of Forever places Indigenous voices at the center of conversations about today’s environmental crisis. The book draws on interviews with people from different North American Indigenous cultures and communities, generations, and geographic regions. Together, they share knowledge, experience, questions, observations, and dreams of maintaining the best relationship possible with all life.
We Are the Middle of Forever illuminates the perspectives of those who have been long-attuned to a changing planet. As we look for new ideas and responses to our shared human challenges, Indigenous voices offer hope, connection, and a welcome antidote to the despair arising from the climate crisis.
Dahr Jamail is the author of Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq as well as The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption. He has won the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism and the Izzy Award. He lives in Washington State.

Infernal Harpies: An Evening Reading Hosted by Mythic Delirium
2022-06-18 17:00 - 18:30 | WA
An evening of short reads and long talks; there’ll be a Q&A at the end.
It’s at 8PM EST tonight over Zoom, but make sure to register first! It’s free!

P&P Live! & DCPL Present Zahra Marwan | WHERE BUTTERFLIES FILL THE SKY
2022-06-30 15:00 - 16:00 | WA
Zahra Marwan discusses her picture book WHERE BUTTERFLIES FILL THE SKY, the true story of her and her family’s immigration from Kuwait.

About this event

Politics and Prose is delighted to partner with the DC Public Library and the DC Public Library Foundation for a Beyond the Book program with author Zahra Marwan who presents her picture book WHERE BUTTERFLIES FILL THE SKY.
Beyond the Book is a library literacy program that supports developing readers aged 5-8 to become successful and joyful readers. Beyond the Book is made possible by the generous support of the DC Public Library Foundation. More information about Beyond the Book can be found here.
The first 50 people to register for the event and select the “Free Event Admission + Free Book” option at registration will receive a complimentary copy of the book for their home library (one book per family, please). Recipients of the complimentary copy will pick their book up in the Children’s department at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, 901 G St. NW, Washington, DC, beginning Thursday, June 30. Please note that complimentary book copies must be picked up by Saturday, July 9. These books are generously donated by the District of Columbia Public Library Foundation.
About the book:
As a child, Zahra Marwan left the only home she’d ever known in Kuwait for a strange and unfamiliar land named New Mexico. Her father – and as such, her siblings and herself – were deemed stateless citizens of Kuwait, unable to obtain an education, healthcare or even get married. Leaving behind the familiar turquoise of the sea and the faded greens and yellows of the desert, Zahra is surprised to find similarities in the magical vistas of her new home. Although she misses the comfort of her aunties and the beauty of Kuwait’s butterfly-filled skies, New Mexico surprises with its own wondrous landscapes, and new friends who help Zahra feel like she belongs.
Zahra Marwan was born in Kuwait, and moved to Albuquerque with her family when she was a child. She studied visual arts in France and works primarily in Illustration. She currently lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and works in her studio at the Harwood Art Center. Her watercolor-and-ink illustrations incorporate Kuwaiti tendencies into her daily life.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/pp-live-dcpl-present-zahra-marwan-where-butterflies-fill-the-sky-tickets-353956171437

Author: Salma El-Wardany (virtual)
2022-07-09 13:00 - 14:00 | WA
This midday Saturday virtual reading sends us over the Atlantic to wherever Egyptian/Irish poet, novelist, spoken word performer and BBC broadcaster Salma El-Wardany may be. She is here with her much-anticipated, brilliant first novel, These Impossible Things (Grand Central).
“These Impossible Things is an addictive portrait of three Muslim friends moving through a pivotal time in womanhood, caught between expectation and possibility, hungry to earn wisdom of their own. Salma El-Wardany deftly reveals searing and poignant truths about the female experience, ones so rarely confronted in fiction. What a gift to be inside this author’s mind through the pages of her beautiful and memorable writing.”—Ashley Audrain.
“Salacious, incisive, and unapologetically Muslim, Salma El-Wardany’s bold and brilliant story doesn’t shy away from the taboo subjects of religion and sex. These Impossible Things shows that Muslim women are multifaceted and complex despite the dearth of representation we are allowed.”—Blair Imani.
Virtually hosted by Elliott Bay Book Company.

Virtual US Book Launch Event - "Oranges from Jaffa," by Nadine Sayegh
2022-07-10 09:15 - 10:15 | WA
Oranges from Jaffa – A true story about the end of the golden age of Palestine
Please join us for a conversation with and a reading of book excerpts by the book author, Nadine Sayegh, who is an Austrian Palestinian with Jaffa roots.

Jaffa Oranges is a family history, a novel against oblivion. The book presents the coming of age story of Nicolas Sayegh, a Palestinian Tom-Sawyer-type, who, together with his friends, roams the sun-drenched neighborhood streets of Jaffa in 1947 – an ancient Arab city, the commercial capital of Palestine at the time, fragrant with the smell of orange blossoms. Nicolas is always up to childhood adventures and mischief, exploring his parents’ magical orange groves, parading through his neighborhood like a cowboy on a donkey’s back, or sneaking out with his best friend Suhail to the local Alhambra cinema. The story poetically portrays the daily life of a well-to-do Christian Palestinian family and the people of Jaffa as a whole, giving insights into the local Palestinian culture that was prevalent at the time. However, Nicolas’ carefree days and boyhood ended abruptly in the spring of 1948, when the state of Israel was created and most inhabitants of Jaffa were driven out by the Zionist forces.

Conner Habib at Powell Books (Portland)
2022-07-21 19:00 - 21:00 | Powell Books, 1005 W Burnside St., Portland, OR, 97209, United States
An English teacher is gaslit by his charismatic high school bully in a tense story of deception, manipulation, and murder from Conner Habib, host of the Against Everyone with Conner Habib podcast. Single father Todd is relaxing at the beach with his son, Anthony, when he catches sight of a man approaching from the water’s edge. As the man draws closer, Todd recognizes him as Jack, who bullied Todd relentlessly in their teenage years but now seems overjoyed to have “run into” his old friend. Jack suggests a meal to catch up. And can he spend the night? What follows is a fast-paced story of obsession and cunning. As Jack invades Todd’s life, pain and intimidation from the past unearth knife-edge suspense in the present. Set in a small town on the New England coast, Habib’s debut introduces characters trapped in isolation by the expansive woods and the encroaching ocean, their violence an expression of repressed desire and the damage it can inflict. Both gruesome and tender, Hawk Mountain (W. W. Norton) offers a compelling look at how love and hate are indissoluble, intertwined until the last breath.

Please note: Signed preordered books will be shipped to you and are not available for pick-up in the store the night of the event (but if you’re planning to attend, don’t worry! Signed editions are usually available at the events). Also, we are sorry but we can not accommodate personalized inscriptions, or guarantee the signed books are first editions. Thanks for your understanding.
See our full selection of signed editions from Powell’s

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Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments

Single father Todd is relaxing at the beach with his son, Anthony, when he catches sight of a man approaching from the water’s edge. As the man draws closer, Todd recognizes him as Jack, who bullied Todd relentlessly in their teenage years, but now seems overjoyed to have “run into” his old friend. Jack suggests a meal to catch up. And can he spend the night?
What follows is a fast-paced story of obsession and cunning. As Jack invades Todd’s life, pain and intimidation from the past unearth knife-edge suspense in the present. Set in a small town on the New England coast, Conner Habib’s debut introduces characters trapped in isolation by the expansive woods and the encroaching ocean, their violence an expression of repressed desire and the damage it can inflict. Both gruesome and tender, Hawk Mountain offers a compelling look at how love and hate are indissoluble, intertwined until the last breath.

Review
“The tension is palpable on every page, and Habib skillfully illustrates the complexity of relationships and the pain of unmet desires, both queer and otherwise. His prose is as brutal as it is profound and beautiful…. A brutal and gorgeous tale of manipulation, control, and desire.” Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
Review
“Conner Habib’s debut novel is a bleak, dark adrenaline rush.” Clive Barker
Review
“A deeply disturbing yet, somehow, soaring novel I won’t soon forget. It plumbs the depths of traumatized characters trapped within our damaging culture. I couldn’t look away, even when I was looking from between my fingers.” Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts and The Pallbearers Club
Review
“The opening lines of Hawk Mountain plummet you into an atmosphere of creeping dread and precarious restraint that won’t let up until the final, shocking moments.” Caitlin Doughty, bestselling author of Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
About the Author
Conner Habib hosts the podcast Against Everyone with Conner Habib, which features conversations with artists, intellectuals, and countercultural figures, and covers topics as wide-ranging as punk rock, philosophy, pornography, and occultism. His nonfiction writing has appeared in multiple online and print magazines. He lives in Ireland. Hawk Mountain is his first novel.

Conner Habib with Jarret Middleton — Hawk Mountain: A Novel
2022-07-22 19:00 - 20:30 | Third Place Books – Ravenna, 6504 20th Ave NE, Seattle, WA, 98115, United States
“Hawk Mountain is deft horror, made of precise strikes into our most vulnerable psychic terrain… Finally, a horror story that knows cisheteropatriarchy is the villain!” —Andrea Lawlor

Third Place Books welcomes Conner Habib—host of the popular podcast Against Everyone with Conner Habib—to our Ravenna store! Join Habib for a discussion of his debut novel Hawk Mountain, a fast-paced novel of deceit and suspense following the story of an English teacher re-encountering his high school bully seemingly by chance (but nothing is ever by chance). Habib will joined in conversation with Jarret Middleton, author of Darkansas. This event is free and open to the public. Registration is required in advance.
Copies of Hawk Mountain will be available for purchase at the store. This event will include a public signing and time for audience Q&A. Sustain our author series by purchasing a copy of the featured book!
Click here for more about our COVID-19 policies for in-person events.
Having trouble accessing Eventbrite? Click here.
JULY 22 – Seattle, WA – Third Place Books (Ravenna) with Jarett Middleton – this is a TICKETED EVENT

Mona Awad in Conversation With Iain Reid
2022-08-03 17:00 - 18:00 | WA
From the author of Bunny, which Margaret Atwood hails as “genius,” comes a “wild, and exhilarating” (Lauren Groff) novel about a theater professor who is convinced staging Shakespeare’s most maligned play will remedy all that ails her — but at what cost? Miranda Fitch’s life is a waking nightmare. The accident that ended her burgeoning acting career left her with excruciating chronic back pain, a failed marriage, and a deepening dependence on painkillers. And now, she’s on the verge of losing her job as a college theater director. Determined to put on Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well, the play that promised and cost her everything, she faces a mutinous cast hellbent on staging Macbeth instead. Miranda sees her chance at redemption slip through her fingers. That’s when she meets three strange benefactors who have an eerie knowledge of Miranda’s past and a tantalizing promise for her future: one where the show goes on, her rebellious students get what’s coming to them, and the invisible doubted pain that’s kept her from the spotlight is made known. With prose Atwood has described as “no punches pulled, no hilarities dodged… genius,” Mona Awad has concocted her most potent, subversive novel yet. All’s Well (Scribner/Marysue Rucci Books) is a “fabulous novel” (Mary Karr) about a woman at her breaking point and a formidable, piercingly funny indictment of our collective refusal to witness and believe female pain. Awad will be joined in conversation by Iain Reid, author of I’m Thinking of Ending Things.

Matthew Teller, author of Nine Quarters of Jerusalem with Palestine Museum US
2022-09-04 09:00 - 11:00 | Virtual
The program begins at 12 Noon US EDT; 7:00 PM Palestine Time
Please join us for a session of open discussion about Palestinian topics.
Our guest for this episode is Matthew Teller, author of Nine Quarters of Jerusalem, A New Biography of the Old City
This is a Virtual Book Launch

About the Book
This unique, absorbing biography of Jerusalem brings to light its overlooked histories and diverse contemporary voices.
In Jerusalem, what you see and what is true are two different things. The Old City has never had “four quarters” as its maps proclaim. And beyond the crush and frenzy of its major religious sites, many of its quarters are little known to visitors, its people ignored and their stories untold. Nine Quarters of Jerusalem lets the communities of the Old City speak for themselves. Ranging from ancient past to political present, it evokes the city’s depth and cultural diversity.
Matthew Teller’s highly original “biography” features the Old City’s Palestinian and Jewish communities, but also spotlights its Indian and African populations, its Greek and Armenian and Syriac cultures, its downtrodden Dom Gypsy families, and its Sufi mystics. It discusses the sources of Jerusalem’s holiness and the ideas—often startlingly secular—that have shaped lives within its walls. It is an evocation of place through story, led by the voices of Jerusalemites.

Rajiv Mohabir and Mortada Gzar - Live at Elliott Bay
2022-09-07 19:00 - 20:00 | WA
Noted poet and translator Rajiv Mohabir, along with Seattle-based Iraqi writer Mortada Gzar (more on him below) make this welcome September visit for the paperback of Roajiv Mohabir’s much-acclaimed prose debut, Antiman: A Hybrid Memoir. Recipient of the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing (which has helped launch several excellent books), this was also a Lambda and PEN Book Book Award finalist, and received a 2021 Indies FOREWORD Award for LGBTQ+ non-fiction.

P&P Live! Zoulfa Katouh | As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow with Sabaa Tahir (virtual)
2022-09-13 15:00 - 17:00 | WA
Salama Kassab was just a normal teenager living a normal life. But as revolution ignites Syria, burning stronger and brighter with each day, Salama recognizes the urgent need to seek safety outside of the country. Just a first year Pharmacy student, she is asked to perform procedures way beyond her education at the local hospital, where she witnesses firsthand the brutality of war. As she mourns family members lost in the violence, and struggles to protect her pregnant sister-in-law, her anxiety morphs into a physical manifestation in the form of an imaginary friend, Khawf, who provides comfort as her constant companion. But even as she is desperate to flee to safety, she is conflicted by her loyalty to her country. This gripping work of speculative fiction mixes current events with elements of fantasy, providing a heartbreaking glimpse into a country at war. Author Zoulfa Katouh draws from her own experiences as a Syrian to create a well-rounded and relatable protagonist and supporting characters.
Registrations that include the purchase of As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow will come with exclusive art cards while supplies last.
Pre-orders of As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow come with additional promotional items. Once you have purchased your copy, CLICK HERE to complete the form and upload your receipt. Items will be shipped directly from the author and require proof of purchase.
Zoulfa Katouh is a Syrian Canadian based in Switzerland. She is currently pursuing her master’s in Drug Sciences. As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow is her debut novel.
Sabaa Tahir began writing her #1 New York Times bestselling An Ember in the Ashes series while working nights as a newspaper editor. The series has been translated into over thirty-five languages, and the first book in the series was named one of TIME’s 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time and one of Entertainment Weekly’s 10 Best YA Books of the decade. Tahir’s most recent novel, All My Rage, released in March 2022 to widespread critical acclaim. An instant New York Times bestseller, All My Rage has received eight starred reviews and the 2022 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Fiction and Poetry.

Abdulrazak Gurnah — Afterlives — with Tope Folarin (LIVE and virtual)
2022-09-13 16:00 - 18:00 | WA
Upcoming Event

Tuesday, September 13, 2022 – 7:00pm ET

Click here for tickets to this in-person event!
At this in-person event (with a virtual attendance option), masks and proof of vaccination are required. Please review our health and safety protocols here.
Abdulrazak Gurnah is the winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature. After fleeing his native Zanzibar for the United Kingdom at age 18, Gurnah turned to writing in English as a way to make sense of the hardships of a refugee’s existence. With a gift for transforming the experience of displacement into gripping fiction, Gurnah brings intimacy and humanity to the realities of colonialism. Afterlives follows a trio of young people living, working, and falling in love, their fates knotted ever more tightly together against the backdrop of the German colonial rule of 20th-century East Africa.
Gurnah will be in conversation with Tope Folarin, the Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Studies, the Lannan Visiting Lecturer in Creative Writing at Georgetown University, and the author of the novel A Particular Kind of Black Man.
with Politics and Prose
This program will run approximately 1 hour.
Virtual attendees will receive the event access link 48 hours, 2 hours, and 10 minutes before the event begins.

Abdulrazak Gurnah: In‑Person & Online
2022-09-20 19:30 - 21:00 | Town Hall, 1119 8th Ave, Seattle, WA, 98101, United States
Winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature, Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Afterlives is a sweeping, multi-generational saga of displacement, loss, and love, set against the brutal colonization of east Africa. Following the story of Ilyas, a boy stolen by German colonial troops, Afterlives is a novel that “gathers close all those who were meant to be forgotten, and refuses their erasure.

At Town Hall Seattle—The Great Hall

In Person & Online

Literary Arts

Tuesday, September 20, 2022 7:30 pm PST

Hugo Literary Series 2022-23 Season
2022-09-30 19:00 - 20:30 | Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave, Seattle, WA, 98122, United States
Reincarnation: September 30, 2022, 7 pm
Featuring Omar El Akkad, Lilliam Rivera, Joshua Mohr, and Brenna Bruce

“Every year, Hugo House commissions new prose, poetry, and songs based on a writing prompt. During the Hugo Literary Series, artists share the results. This year, our artists will explore the theme re/birth to celebrate, if not the end of the pandemic, then at least some way of us living in the world with it, and the revival/resurgence of creativity that has been dormant for two long years.”

Maya Abu-Alhayyat, Zeina Hashem Beck | Live Reading + Book Release
2022-10-06 15:00 - 17:00 | WA
Free with RSVP
Register for in-person attendance OR Register for virtual attendance
AANM presents a live bilingual poetry reading featuring an incredible lineup of poets: Maya Abu-Alhayyat and Zeina Hashem Beck. Join us as the poets read excerpts from their new works, exploring such themes of language and notions of home.
Maya Abu Al-Hayyat is the director of the Palestine Writing Workshop, an institution that seeks to encourage reading in Palestinian communities through creative writing projects and storytelling with children and teachers. She has published four collections of poems, four novels, and numerous children’s stories, including The Blue Pool of Questions. She contributed to and wrote a foreword for A Bird Is Not a Stone: An Anthology of Contemporary Palestinian Poetry, and she is also an editor of The Book of Ramallah. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Cordite Poetry Review, The Guardian, and Literary Hub. Abu Al-Hayyat lives in Jerusalem and works in Ramallah.
Zeina Hashem Beck is a Lebanese poet and the author of two previous full-length collections of poetry: Louder than Hearts (Bauhan Publishing, 2017) and To Live in Autumn (The Backwaters Press, 2014), as well as two chapbooks: 3arabi Song (Rattle, 2016) and There Was and How Much There Was (smith|doorstop, 2016). Educated in Arabic, English, and French, Zeina has a BA and an MA in English Literature from the American University of Beirut. Her poem “Maqam” won Poetry’s 2017 Frederick Bock Prize, and her work appeared in The New York Times, Ploughshares, Poetry, and elsewhere. Zeina is the co-creator and co-host, with poet Farah Chamma, of Maqsouda, a podcast about Arabic poetry produced by Sowt. She recently moved to California with her husband and two daughters.
