ArabishWay

Laila Lalami: Kepler's Literary Foundation
2021-10-14 18:00 - 19:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | WA
THIS IS AN ONLINE EVENT. Please consider joining with a book to support programs like this one.
Pulitzer Prize Finalist Laila Lalami—author of the acclaimed novels The Moor’s Account and The Other Americans—opens up with a deeply personal and powerfully researched book about the experience of “conditional citizens” living in the United States.
What does it mean to be American? In this starkly illuminating and passionate detail, Laila Lalami recounts her unlikely journey from Moroccan immigrant to U.S. citizen, using it as a starting point for her exploration of the rights, liberties, and protections that are traditionally associated with American citizenship. Through a tour of history, politics, culture and literature, in a book that Viet Thanh Nguyen calls “a gift to all Americans,” Lalami clarifies a vision of the United States where accidents of birth are codified in a hierarchy that disenfranchises and limits some based on skin color and origin. Conditional citizens, Lalami argues, are all the people whom America embraces with one arm, and pushes away with the other.
Online with Kepler’s on October 14 for the paperback release of Conditional Citizens, one of our most compelling literary voices takes a hard look at a broken social fabric which limits the welcoming promise of our famously multicultural nation. In a period of continued international turmoil around borders, a very real refugee crisis and embattled citizenship, be prepared to join the conversation: don’t miss Laila Lalami.
“Consistently thoughtful and incisive, the book confronts the perils of our modern age with truths to inspire the coalition-building necessary to American cultural and democratic survival. A bracingly provocative collection perfect for our times.”—Kirkus Reviews

Candid Conversations with Susan Abulhawa
2021-10-21 12:00 - 13:30 | WA
Thursday, October 21, 2021
8:00 PM 9:00 PM (BST) – 12:00 PM 1:00PM (PST)
Google Calendar ICS

Nahr has been confined to the Cube: nine square metres of glossy grey cinderblock, devoid of time, its patterns of light and dark nothing to do with day and night. Journalists visit her, but get nowhere; because Nahr is not going to share her story with them. The world outside calls Nahr a terrorist, and a whore; some might call her a revolutionary, or a hero. But the truth is, Nahr has always been many things, and had many names. She was a girl who learned, early and painfully, that when you are a second class citizen love is a kind of desperation; she learned, above all else, to survive.

Virtual Event: Margaret Owen with Hafsah Faizal — Little Thieves
2021-10-21 19:00 - 20:30 | WA
Third Place Books welcomes Margaret Owen, the beloved author of The Merciful Crow and The Faithless Hawk, for the launch of her highly anticipated standalone YA novel: Little Thieves. She will joined in conversation by Hafsah Faizal, the New York Times bestselling author of We Hunt the Flame.

IN MEDIAS RES: A CELEBRATION OF THE ODYSSEY PROJECT'S STUDENT JOURNAL
2021-11-03 17:00 - 18:30 | WA
Join us virtually on Wednesday, November 3, 2021 at 7:00 p.m (Chicago Time). for the launch of the 2021 In Medias Res, a journal of The Odyssey Project
Illinois Humanities is thrilled to celebrate the launch of the latest issue of In Medias Res, a journal of creative written and visual work by Odyssey Project students and alumni.
Contributors will read from their published work alongside celebrated Chicago author, Sahar Mustafah, whose recent novel The Beauty of Your Face (Norton, 2020) was listed as one of the New York Times Most Notable Books of 2020.

University Book Store Presents: Laila Lalami in conversation with Dr. Anu Taranath
2021-11-03 18:00 - 19:00 | WA
Conditional Citizens: On Belonging In America (Pantheon Books)
November 03, 2021, 6:00 PM (Pacific Time) Virtual
Free

University Book Store is proud to present author and Pulitzer Prize-finalist Laila Lalami for a discussion about her new book Conditional Citizens. Laila will be joined in conversation with Dr. Anu Taranath, Teaching Professor in the English and Comparative History of Ideas (CHID) departments at the University of Washington.
This is a free Zoom event but registration, through the link provided, is required to receive a Zoom code to join the Webinar. If you have any questions, please email events@ubookstore.com. See you there!
ABOUT THE BOOK
A New York Times Editors’ Choice • Finalist for the California Book Award • Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction • Best Book of the Year: Time, NPR, Bookpage, Los Angeles Times
In this brilliantly argued and deeply personal work, Pulitzer Prize finalist Laila Lalami recounts her unlikely journey from Moroccan immigrant to U.S.citizen, using her own story as a starting point for an exploration of the rights, liberties, and protections that are traditionally associated with American citizenship. Tapping into history, politics, and literature, she elucidates how accidents of birth—such as national origin, race, and gender—that once determined the boundaries of Americanness still cast their shadows today, poignantly illustrating how white supremacy survives through adaptation and legislation. Weaving together her experiences with an examination of the place of nonwhites in the broader American culture, Lalami illuminates how conditional citizens are all those whom America embraces with one arm and pushes away with the other.

Laila Lalami was born in Rabat and educated in Morocco, Great Britain, and the United States. She is the author of four novels, including The Moor’s Account, which won the American Book Award, the Arab American Book Award, and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her most recent work, The Other Americans, was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her essays have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, Harper’s Magazine, The Guardian, and The New York Times. Lalami is a professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside. She lives in Los Angeles. www.lailalalami.com

Rabih Alameddine with Michael David Lukas and R.O. Kwon
2021-11-08 18:00 - 20:00 | WA
One of our favorite, and one of our most necessary literary writers at work today, Rabih Alameddine, makes this welcome Elliott Bay return in virtual form to read from and discuss his brilliant new novel, The Wrong End of the Telescope (Grove Press). Here the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist for An Unnecessary Woman, as well The Hakawati, I, the Divine, and others, again tells the story of a singular woman.

2021 Arab American Book Awards: A Ceremony of Live Readings
2021-11-13 14:00 - 16:00 | WA
Join the 2021 Arab American Book Award winners and honorable mentions, featuring awardees Susan Abulhawa, Sarah M.A. Gualtieri, Helen Zughaib, George Abraham, Noor Naga, Aya Khalil, Anait Semirdzhyan, Susan Muaddi Darraj, Dima Alzayat and Sirène Harb for a celebratory live reading, hosted by artist-in-residence Fargo Tbakhi!

In Conversation: On Conditional Citizens: On Belonging in America
2021-11-16 09:00 - 10:00 | WA
Livestreamed

In Conditional Citizens: On Belonging in America, Laila Lalami recounts her unlikely journey from Moroccan immigrant to U.S. citizen, using it as a starting point for her exploration of American rights, liberties, and the place of nonwhites in the broader American culture. Moderated by author Marie Arana.

If you are interested in this event, please double check time!

Jordan Salama with Michael Shapiro (Virtual)
2021-12-01 18:00 - 20:00 | Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 10th Avenue, Seattle, 98122, United States
A journalist and TV producer who works in both English and Spanish, Jordan Salama’s debut, Every Day the River Changes: Four Weeks Down the Magdalena (Catapult), received such awards as the Ricardo Piglia Award and Stanley J. Stein Prize for Best Senior Thesis at Princeton University (yes, he’s young – this started as a senior thesis) on the way to becoming a book.
“Jordan Salama writes with an attentiveness, and a sense of adventure, that many of us might envy; this engaging, intrepid debut promises many more wonders to come. Already he’s shown himself to be a writer with a rare (and inspiring) commitment to giving us the world.” —Pico Iyer.
“The book is more than a notable achievement in travel literature and more than a clarifying window into a misunderstood culture; it is a book of conscience and open-heartedness . . . It is a privilege to savor, if vicariously, this harvest of a promising writer’s vivid journeys.” —Kirkus Reviews.
“This is a born journalist.”—John McPhee.
Joining Jordan Salama in virtual conversation will be rafting guide, interview journalist (Spark), and author Michael Shapiro. His recent book is The Creative Spark: How Musicians, Writers, Explorers, and Other Artists Found Their Inner Fire and Followed Their Dreams.
Co-presented by ORION & Elliott Bay Book Company.
REGISTRATION/INFORMATION

Syrian/Iraqi

Reading & Conversation hosted by University of Michigan-Dearborn
2021-12-06 16:00 - 17:00 | WA
Join Sahar Mustafah as she reads from and discusses her novel. Register here for this free virtual event.

(Please double check the time.)

Virtual Book Event "The Other End of the Sea" by Alison Glick
2022-01-09 09:00 - 10:30 | WA
Please click here to register for this event.
Click here to order the book from Palestine Museum US Bookshop
Join us for a conversation with author Alison Glick talking about and reading from her newly published book, The Other End of the Sea.

Online Class (series of 3): Literature of Rafik Schami With Heba F. El-Shazli
2022-01-24 10:00 - 12:00 | WA
This is a three series class starting on January 24.
Join me on this tumultuous, passionate, and heart rendering voyage back to Syria for this most interesting Syrian-German author.
Through three novels we will travel to Syria and read about a passionate love story of a Muslim woman and a Christian man and learn about the art of Arabic calligraphy. We will journey to Damascus in 1959 and read about the most famous storyteller and in the final novel to read and discuss in this series of classes, Sophia or the Beginning of All Tales, Schami ventures to the land of his childhood, where he is now unable to safely return.
Three bi-weekly Mondays: January 24, February 7 and 21, from 1 to 3 p.m. EST Online
CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS

Nadifa Mohamed with Cynthia Bond
2022-01-25 18:00 - 19:30 | WA
Even though it is virtual, we are delighted to finally be able to present a reading/talk program with Nadifa Mohamed, a writer we’ve read and followed through her first novels, Black Mamba Boy and The Orchard of Lost Souls. Born in Hargeisa, Somaliland and then raised and educated in London, she has received the Betty Trask and Somerset Maugham Awards, and in 2013 was named one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists – a distinction which got her to Seattle as part of a group tour. She is virtually with us tonight for her compelling, Man Booker shortlist nominated novel, The Fortune Men (Knopf). Based on a true story, the narrative centers on the unjust conviction (overturned years later) and execution of an innocent Somali immigrant, Mahmood Mattan in Cardiff, Wales in 1952. There is more to this book than that.
“Equally informative and moving . . . The immediate allure of the novel is the vibrancy of Mohamed’s prose, her ability to capture the complicated culture of Cardiff and the sound of tortured optimism. . . . The horrific finale of The Fortune Men is never in doubt, but for more than 200 pages Mohamed still creates a sharp sense of suspense by pulling us right into Mahmood’s world as his life tilts and then crashes. . . . There’s a natural grandeur to her portrayal of this ordinary man caught in the city’s gears. Readers will hear echoes of Dostoevsky and Kafka in her re-creation of this nightmare. . . . With The Fortune Men, Mohamed has given us a clear vision of so many victims caught in the maw of racist legal systems.”—Ron Charles, The Washington Post.
“Nadifa Mohamed’s The Fortune Men is a blues song cut straight from the heart. It tells about the unjust death of an innocent Black man caught up in a corrupt system. Nadifa’s masterful evocation of the full life of Mahmood Mattan, the last man executed in Cardiff for a crime he was exonerated for forty years later, is brought alive with subtle artistry and heartbreaking humanity. In one man’s life Mohamed captures the multitudes of homelands, dialects, hopes, and prayers of Somalis, Jews, Maltese and West Indians drawn in by the ships that filled Wales’ Tiger Bay in the 1950’s, all hoping for a future that eludes Mattan.”—Walter Mosley.

Virtual Event: Maggie P Chang, Mika Song, Dan Abdo, and Jason Patterson present graphica for early readers
2022-01-26 18:00 - 19:30 | 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!
