My Name is the People of Palestine: cultural event
2020-10-24 10:00 - 12:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
“My Name is the People of Palestine” cultural event will take place on October 24-25 at 10:00am PST featuring Palestinian music and culture.

About this Event

Join us for a free online concert on Oct 24th-25th, 2020 at 10am PST/ 8pm Jerusalem to globally celebrate Palestinian music and culture together.
Music director Saleheddine Bedoui will be leading Aswat Ensemble with these featured artists:

Amal Murkus
Boutros Rouhana
Charbel Rouhana
Shadia Mansour
Reem Talhami
George Bisharat

Featured Poets:

Mourid Barghouti
Tamim Barghouti
Anis Chouehene

Two new songs by Boutros and Charbel Rouhana will premier at the concert.
This event will be streamed live on Facebook, Zoom, and Youtube, reserve your front-row seat and please share.
Translation will emailed to you and made available at Zawaya.org.
This concert is sponsored by: Zawaya, Middle East Children’s Alliance, and Palestinian Youth Movement.

Dodge Poetry Festival: The Compassion of Hard Truths: Zeina Hashem Beck and Others
2020-10-31 09:00 - 11:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
The Compassion of Hard Truths: Zeina Hashem Beck, Martín Espada, Paisley Rekdal, Seema Reza. Moderated by Martin J. Farawell
Zeina Hashem Beck is a Lebanese poet with a BA and an MA in English Literature from the American University of Beirut. She won the 2016 May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize for her second full-length collection, Louder than Hearts (Bauhan Publishing 2017), about which Naomi Shihab Nye wrote, “Everything Arabic we treasure comes alive in these poems. Readers will feel restored to so many homes, revived, amazed. Zeina Hashem Beck writes with a brilliant, absolutely essential voice.”
http://www.zeinahashembeck.com/

Grateful Every Day: Writing Poems Together — Youth Workshop with Naomi Shihab Nye
2020-11-14 11:00 - 13:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Online via Zoom
Registration required
How can poems help our lives? Naomi Shihab Nye, Young People’s Poet Laureate, leads this friendly writing workshop for students in grades 6, 7 and 8 — no experience in poetry necessary. This online workshop, taking place via Zoom, will involve simple strategies for writing around the general topics of attention and gratitude, with some on-the-spot note-taking and sharing of ideas and work. After two hours, participants will have rough drafts of at least 3-4 poems of their own. Bring paper and pen. Bring an open mind about your own writing powers and potential. We are all richer in resources than we think we are. How do we welcome some of our thoughts and insights onto the page? No stress. You don’t have to dress up! Register for the workshop
Naomi Shihab Nye was born in St. Louis, lived in Jerusalem and now lives in San Antonio, Texas. Palestinian American, she started writing poems at the age of 6 and believes “we are all living in poems.” She has published more than 30 books of poetry and prose and conducted writing workshops all over the world since college days. Nye was named by The Poetry Foundation as the Young People’s Poet Laureate for 2019-2021, making her the first Arab American to earn this honor.

Palestine Writes Conference
2020-12-02 - 2020-12-06
This conference is 4 days packed full of poets, authors, artists, cooking, comedy and more!
Susan Abulhawa, Amer Zahr and his mother, Susan Muaddi Darraj, Lena Tuffaha, Randa Jarrar, Angela Davis, Isabella Hammad, Remi Kanazi, Acrafty Arab, Wafa Ghnaim and that’s not even the half of it.
You must check out the full program so that you don’t miss a thing!
www.palestinewrites.org/program
and be sure to register and support in advance:
www.palestinewrites.vfairs.com

Lion Rock Visiting Writers Series @ Central Washington University (Online)
2021-01-26 18:00 - 19:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Lion Rock Visiting Writers Series @ Central Washington University (Online)

Dujie Tahat (he/they) is a Filipino-Jordanian immigrant living in Washington state. They are the author of Here I Am O My God and Salat, winner of the Tupelo Press Sunken Garden Chapbook Award. With Luther Hughes and Gabrielle Bates, they cohost The Poet Salon podcast. dujietahat.com
Jourdan Imani Keith is an essayist, playwright, naturalist, educator, and storyteller whose work blends the textures of political, personal and natural landscapes to offer voices from the margins of American lives. Keith has performed nationally and internationally, including on TEDx. Jourdan Keith is Founder and Director of Urban Wilderness Project. jourdankeith.wordpress.com

To Palestine With Love - The poetry and art of Najwa Kawar Farah
2021-01-31 09:00 - 10:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
A reading of poems and a review of artwork by Palestinian writer, poet, and artist Najwa Kawar Farah, followed by audience discussion
Najwa Kawar Farah is a Palestinian writer who has contributed to Palestinian and Arabicliterature for several decades. The bulk of her publications are short stories, novels and poems. Najwa was born in Nazareth and lived in Haifa until 1965, and then in two West Bank cities, Jerusalem and Ramallah. Najwa also lived in Lebanon, the UK and Canada. She passed away in Canada in 2015.
Najwa’s life experiences in Palestine and the Middle East, provided her with the political, historical, and socio-cultural milieu from which she drew and developed her characters.
Most of her protagonists are Palestinians, mainly ’ordinary’ people especially refugees uprooted from their homes and homeland, who seek answers to their individual and collective historical predicament. Many of these protagonists are resilient women, who in addition to their political oppression encounter social discrimination. Her stories and novels come in eleven collections in Arabic. A number of these have been translated into English.
About the Readers/Moderators
Zeina Azzam is a Palestinian American poet, writer, editor, and community activist. Currently she works as publications editor at the think tank, Arab Center Washington DC. Her chapbook, Bayna Bayna, In-Between, will be published by The Poetry Box in 2021. Zeina’s poems appear/will appear in Pleiades, Passager, Sukoon Magazine, Mizna, Cordite Poetry Review, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Barzakh: A Literary Magazine, Infinite Rust, Heartwood Literary Magazine, Lunch Ticket, The Fourth River, Split This Rock, Voice Male, and the edited volumes Tales from Six Feet Apart (2021),Bettering American Poetry (2019), Making Mirrors: Writing/Righting by and for Refugees (2019), The Poeming Pigeon (2017), Write Like You’re Alive 2017, Gaza Unsilenced (2015), and Yellow as Turmeric, Fragrant as Cloves (2008). She volunteers for organizations that promote Palestinian rights and the civil rights of vulnerable communities in Alexandria, Virginia, where she lives, and is a mentor for We Are Not Numbers, a writing program for youth in Gaza. Zeina holds an M.A. in Arabic literature from Georgetown University, an M.A. in sociology from George Mason University, and a B.A. in psychology from Vassar College.
Sahar Mustafah
Sahar Mustafah is the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, an inheritance she explores in her fiction. Her first novel The Beauty of Your Face (W.W. Norton, 2020) was named a 2020 Notable Book and Editor’s Choice by New York Times Book Review, a Los Angeles Times United We Read selection, one of Marie Claire Magazine’s 2020 Best Fiction by Women, and a Great Group Reads for National Reading Group Month. It was long-listed for the Center for Fiction 2020 First Novel Prize, and was a finalist for Chicago Writers Association Best Book of the Year award and the Chicago Review of Books award. Her short story collection Code of the West was the winner of the 2016 Willow Books Fiction Award. Her stories have earned a Distinguished Story citation from Best American Short Stories 2016, First Place in Fiction from the Guild Literary Complex of Chicago, and three Pushcart Prize nominations, among other honors. Mustafah earned her MFA from Columbia College Chicago where she was the recipient of the David Friedman Award for Best Fiction. She writes and teaches outside of Chicago.

Reflection Session: Alert! with Andrea Assaf
2021-02-09 16:00 - 17:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
FREE with RSVP
Reflection Sessions are live, interactive, online events led by Arab American theatre artist and AANM artist-in-residence Andrea Assaf, on the second Tuesday of each month this year, leading up to the 20th anniversary of 9/11. Each session is grounded in a performance excerpt from Eleven Reflections on September*, with special guest artists who share their work, and engage in a “back stage” conversation about the themes of the month.
This February session will feature the poem Alert! by Andrea Assaf, and explore themes of surveillance, Islamophobia and drone technology in the post-9/11 era. Special guest announcement coming soon!
For questions, e-mail Kathryn Grabowski, Curator of Public Programs at kgrabowski@accesscommunity.org
*Eleven Reflections on September is a poetry/spoken word, multimedia performance on Arab American experience, Wars on/of Terror, and “the constant, quiet rain of death amidst beauty” that each autumn brings in a post-9/11 world. The annual witnessing of autumn leaves becomes a metaphor for the fallen. This trans-disciplinary project includes performances with interactive media design and live music; community dialogues; visual arts exhibits; open mics, panels and opportunities for action through partnerships with peace organizations. In 2021, this project will be re-created as a large-scale, community-based, devised performance directed by Andrea Assaf, engaging Middle Eastern/North African (MENA) and Muslim American artists and allies in San Antonio, Texas, commissioned by The Carver.

Lee Scheingold Lecture in Poetry and Poetics: Naomi Shihab Nye and Lena Tuffaha - 2021
2021-04-29 17:00 - 18:00 UTC | UW – Intellectual House, 4249 Whitman Ct NE, Seattle, WA, 98105, United States
Last year saw the cancellation of the 3rd Annual Lee Scheingold Lecture in Poetry and Poetics due to the ongoing pandemic. While we’re still unable to gather in person, this year the University of Washington English Department and the Lee Scheingold Lecture in Poetry and Poetics are thrilled to host Naomi Shihab Nye on Thursday, April 29, 2021, 5:00-6:30 PM (PT). We are also excited to welcome Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, winner of the 2018 Washington State Book Award, who will be in conversation with Naomi following her reading. We’re grateful to graduating senior Owen Oliver who will be offering a welcome/land acknowledgment prior to the reading. Please join us for an evening of poetry and conversation with these wonderful writers.
The University of Washington is committed to providing access and reasonable accommodation in its services, programs, and activities. If any accommodations are needed in the completion and submission of this form please contact UW English Department; 206-543-9552; Karla Tofte, ktofte@uw.edu.
All registrants will be entered into a drawing to win one copy of Naomi’s and Lena’s most recent books.
Many thanks to Suhad Khatib for granting permission to use her beautiful work, “The Return” in the poster. And many thanks to Dilara Elbir for her design.
Artist Bios:
Naomi Shihab Nye describes herself as a “wandering poet.” She has spent 40 years traveling the country and the world to lead writing workshops and inspiring students of all ages. Nye was born to a Palestinian father and an American mother and grew up in St. Louis, Jerusalem, and San Antonio. Drawing on her Palestinian-American heritage, the cultural diversity of her home in Texas, and her experiences traveling in Asia, Europe, Canada, Mexico, and the Middle East, Nye uses her writing to attest to our shared humanity. Naomi Shihab Nye is the author and/or editor of more than 30 volumes. Her most recent book is Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners. Her new book of poems is entitled The Tiny Journalist (BOA Editions Ltd., April 2019).
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is a poet, essayist, and translator. She earned a BA in Comparative Literature at the University of Washington and an MFA in Poetry at the Rainier Writing Workshop of Pacific Lutheran University She is the author of the full-length poetry collection, Water & Salt, winner of the 2018 Washington State Book Award for Poetry, and the chapbooks Arab in Newsland (2016) and Letters from the Interior (2019). Her work has been published in journals including Blackbird, Kenyon Review Online, Michigan Quarterly Review, New England Review, Poetry Northwest, TriQuarterly, and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day feature. Her poems have been widely anthologized and have received the Robert Watson Literary Prize and multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations. She is the recipient of a 2019 Artist Trust Fellowship, and has served as the inaugural Poet-In-Residence at Open Books: A Poem Emporium in Seattle. You can learn more about her work at www.lenakhalaftuffaha.com.
Suhad Khatib (b. 1979) is a multimedia artist who was born in Oman, raised in Jordan and been living in the US for the past 14 years. Her work was shown in Montreal, Connecticut, Berkeley, New York, San Francisco and Amman. She describes her work as “an intentional study on healing and identity.” Suhad is also a public speaker on the subject of Palestine, theology, feminism and community organizing. Her practice extends to design and filmmaking. Notably, she is the designer behind prominent social justice campaigns that have shaped our understanding of recent history like: #Ferguson2Palestine, #ISupportRasmea and #ShowMe15. In film, she was one of the founders of the film industry in Jordan, wrote and directed multiple short films, finished residency programs by Sundance Film Institute, Dubai Film Connection, and Euromed Audiovisual Program. Most notably, she was the co-writer of the most watched Jordanian comedy series! Suhad currently resides in San Francisco, CA. https://suhadkhatib.com/

Poetry + Environmental Justice Reading featuring Samiya Bashir, Leila Chatti, Amir Rabiya
2021-05-15 16:00 - 18:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Mizna is proud to present a reading exploring poetry and environmental justice featuring the powerful poets Samiya Bashir, Leila Chatti, and Amir Rabiyah.

This reading’s theme was collectively chosen by members of the Poetry Coalition, of which Mizna is a member, and the is titled after the line “It is burning./ It is dreaming./ It is waking up.” from Linda Hogan’s poem, “Map.” The reading is co-presented with our friends at Moon Palace Books, an indie bookstore in Minneapolis.
>>HOW TO PARTICIPATE<<
The Zoom link will be sent out through Eventbrite the day before + day of the reading. In addition to the Zoom, this event will be livestreamed on Facebook.
>>ACCESSIBILITY<<
This reading will be live-captioned in English. An accessible .pdf of poems will be available to follow during the event, and the full program will be available for viewing post-event.
>>ABOUT POCO<<
This event is part of national Poetry Coalition programming and is supported by the Academy of American Poets with funds from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
More info on the Poetry Coalition and this year’s collaborative programming: https://bit.ly/3sWOjfS
>>ABOUT THE READERS<<
Amir Rabiyah is a trans and two-spirit disabled queer femme poet and writing coach. They were born in London, England to a mixed Cherokee and white mother and a Lebanese and Syrian father. Their work explores living life on the margins and at the intersections of multiple identities. Amir writes about living with chronic pain and illness, war, trauma, spirituality, healing, redemption–and speaks on silenced places. Amir’s first full collection poetry book, Prayers for My 17th Chromosome, available for through Sibling Rivalry Press. This debut collection was a finalist for the Triangle Publishing Award, and an ALA Over the Rainbow pick. Amir is also the co-editor of Writing the Walls Down: A Convergence of LGBTQ Voices and has published in numerous anthologies and journals. They currently live in North Carolina and believe domestic work, chanting Sufi prayers over a home cooked meal, and nurturing our community is crucial for revolution.
Leila Chatti was born in 1990 in Oakland, California. A Tunisian-American dual citizen, she has lived in the United States, Tunisia, and Southern France. She is the author of the debut full-length collection Deluge (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), on the longlist for the 2021 PEN Open Book Award, and the chapbooks Ebb (New-Generation African Poets) and Tunsiya/Amrikiya, the 2017 Editors’ Selection from Bull City Press. She holds a B.A. from the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities at Michigan State University and an M.F.A. from North Carolina State University, where she was awarded the Academy of American Poets Prize. She currently serves as the Consulting Poetry Editor at the Raleigh Review and teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she is the Mendota Lecturer in Poetry.
Samiya Bashir is the author of three books of poetry: Field Theories, and Gospel, and Where the Apple Falls. Sometimes she makes poems of dirt. Sometimes zeros and ones. Sometimes variously rendered text. Sometimes light. Her work has been widely published, performed, installed, printed, screened, and experienced. Bashir holds a BA from the University of California, Berkeley, where she served as Poet Laureate, and an MFA from the University of Michigan, where she received two Hopwood Poetry Awards. Bashir lives in Portland, Oregon where she teaches at Reed College.

Poet Zeina Hashem Beck [afikra Conversations]
2021-05-25 09:00 - 10:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Join us as we interview poet Zeina Hashem Beck on our afikra Conversations series on May 25
Zeina Hashem Beck is a Lebanese poet. Her writing covers a variety of topics: Arab culture, home, exile, family narratives, language, the body, love, and faith. Her poetry often exists at the intersections of the personal & the political, the divine & the profane, the self & the other. She is interested in poetry that creates small bridges and insists on loving the broken world. Her third poetry collection, titled O, will be published by Penguin Books in Summer 2022. Her second full-length collection, Louder than Hearts, won the 2016 May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize. She’s also the author of two chapbooks: 3arabi Song, winner of the 2016 Rattle Chapbook Prize, and There Was and How Much There Was, a smith|doorstop Laureate’s Choice. Her first book, To Live in Autumn, won the 2013 Backwaters Prize. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Poetry, Ploughshares, World Literature Today, The Southeast Review, The Adroit Journal, Triquarterly, the Academy of American Poets, and elsewhere. Zeina invented The Duet, a bilingual poetic form where English and Arabic exist separately and in relationship to each other. Her poem “Maqam” won Poetry Magazine’s 2017 Frederick Bock Prize. She lives in Dubai, where she has founded the poetry open mic night PUNCH.

afikra has a series of fabulous interviews that can be found here: https://www.afikra.com/events

Poetry Talk with Palestinian-American Poet, Zeina Azzam at MPP
2021-06-06 10:00 - 11:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Join us as we have the privilege to welcome Palestinian American poet Zeina Azzam, one of the many poets who continue to tell the Palestinian story, as she prepares to launch a new poetry book titled Bayna Bayna, In-Between. Zeina will share with us recitations of poems from her publication followed by a conversation with our guest moderator, Curator Emerita of Galley Al-Quds, Dagmar Painter, in which they will explore Zeina’s stories and inspirations, and answer questions about her experiences as a daughter of refugees, an immigrant, and a Palestinian American poet at this moment in the United States.

Zeina Azzam is a Palestinian American poet, editor, and community activist. Her poems appear in literary journals and edited volumes including Bettering American Poetry, Making Mirrors: Writing/Righting by and for Refugees, Gaza Unsilenced, Pleiades Magazine, Split This Rock, Passager Journal, Mizna, and Sukoon Magazine. Her chapbook, Bayna Bayna, In-Between, was published in May 2021. She holds an MA in Arabic literature from Georgetown University.

Poet Hayan Charara [afikra Conversations]
2021-06-08 09:00 - 10:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Join us as we interview poet Hayan Charara on our afikra Conversations series on June 8.

Hayan Charara is a poet, children’s book author, essayist, and editor. His poetry books are Something Sinister (2016), The Sadness of Others (2006), The Alchemist’s Diary (2001), and the forthcoming These Trees, Those Leaves, This Flower, That Fruit (2022). His children’s book, The Three Lucys (2016), received the New Voices Award Honor. He also edited Inclined to Speak (2008), an anthology of contemporary Arab American poetry with Fady Joudah. He is also a series editor of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize. His honors include a literature fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lucille Joy Prize in Poetry from the University of Houston Creative Writing Program, the John Clare Prize, and the Arab American Book Award. Additionally, he has taught at a number of colleges and universities, including Queens College, Jersey City University, the City University of New York-La Guardia, the University of Texas at Austin, Trinity University, and Our Lady of the Lake University. He currently teaches in the Honors College and the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston.
afikra has a series of fabulous interviews that can be found here: https://www.afikra.com/events/

Kaveh Akbar: In‑Person & Online
2021-10-15 19:30 - 20:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave, Seattle, WA, 98122, United States
How does one recover from addiction without destroying the self-as-addict? Pilgrim Bell, Kaveh Akbar’s newest collection of poems, meditates on this question, taking readers on a spiritual journey through disavowal, divinity, and belonging.
With formal virtuosity and ruthless precision, Akbar’s brilliant poems unfold in the empty space where song lives, teasing the sacred out of silence and stillness.
Q&A with Lena Khalaf Tuffaha.

Donkeysaddle Projects Presents: The Vignette Collective's Workshop Reading
2021-11-12 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
As we continue to bear witness to the attacks on Palestinian lives, we understand how present the voices of our artists are and need to be. During these times we look to artists within impacted communities as beacons for cultural transformation. Donkeysaddle Projects’ Vignette Collective strives to connect the decolonial struggles of Black, Palestinian, Chicanx, and Turtle Island’s Indigenous communities. Through poetry, personal essays, and performance, we look at the impacts of settler-colonization and celebrate the resilience of those who have been in struggle. And we want to share it with you.

That’s why we’re inviting you to join us on November 12th at 8pm ET for our 2nd virtual fundraiser featuring the work-in-progress from the Vignettes Collective. Get another sneak peek of our creative, collaborative process with our collective of artists, activists, and organizers, while raising funds to support Palestinians in urgent need in Gaza. We hope to see you there!

The Ground and the Sky: Creative Writing Workshops for Youth with Ibtisam Barakat & Naomi Shihab Nye
2021-11-14 11:00 - 13:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
THIS is a TWO PART SERIES
2 p.m. ET Sunday, Nov. 14, 2021
AND
2 p.m. ET Sunday, Nov. 21, 2021
Online via Zoom
FREE with RSVP
What are we rooted in? What can we imagine? Come ready to open the doors of your imagination for your dreams to touch where no one has yet reached. Renowned writers Naomi Shihab Nye and Ibtisam Barakat will lead this two-part writing workshop for high school students – no experience necessary!
This online workshop series, taking place via Zoom, will help to envision, create and accomplish new greatness. The past is mapped out, but that map contains many mysteries, worth exploring, and the future needs a blueprint. Bring a blue-ink pen with you if you wish, for navigation of the great sea of ideas and possibilities. We are appreciating the past and going to the future, together!
Students who attend will receive a gifted copy of Naomi Shihab Nye’s 19 Varieties of Gazelle by mail (within the U.S.) after the workshop!
For questions, e-mail Kathryn Grabowski at KGrabowski@accesscommunity.org.
Naomi Shihab Nye, Palestinian American, is the Young People’s Poet Laureate of the United States, through the Poetry Foundation. She has worked all her life as a visiting writer in hundreds of schools and communities. Her most recent books are Everything Comes Next, Cast Away, The Tiny Journalist, which won both Texas poetry awards (Texas Institute of Letters and Writers League) and Voices in the Air – Poems for Listeners.
Ibtisam Barakat is a Palestinian American bilingual poet and author, and the 2020 Sheihk Zayed Book Award laureate of young people’s literature. SZBA, for the Arabic language, is comparable to the Nobel Prize, for the English language. Ibtisam is the founder of Write Your Life seminars that she has led for audiences of all ages around the world, in both English and Arabic. Her vision is a more representative human history that includes everyone’s stories in their own voices. Ibtisam’s memoirs about growing up in Palestine, Tasting the Sky, a Palestinian Childhood, and Balcony on the Moon, Coming of Age in Palestine, won multiple honors, including the International Reading Association’s Best Book Award, the Middle East Book Award, and the Arab American Book Award. Her most recent books include The Lilac Girl, SZBA 2020 winner, and The Jar that Became a Galaxy, title book for the National Reading Campaign of Palestine 2019. She has two new books forthcoming in 2021. www.ibtisambarakat.com

The Almond Blossom Knows Its Life Is Short: Poetry of Palestinian Women in Translation
2021-11-16 17:00 - 19:00, 2021-11-20 17:00 - 19:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Description: In this class we will explore a selection of translated poetry by Palestinian women. How do these poets tend to loss? How do they engage with their interiors while living in varying states of siege, occupation, or exile? What are their obsessions? Which mythologies do they reject and which others do they remake? Together we’ll read across generations, including poems by Maya Abu Al-Hayyat, Asmaa’ Azaizeh, Ahlam Bisharat, Laila Al-Sa’ih, and Fadwa Touqan. Join us to reflect together on theme and structure; to encounter texts in the original Arabic alongside the translations; and to end with a writing prompt inspired by our exploration.
Format: Online via Zoom

Exploring Poetry through Performance Workshop with George Abraham and Fargo Tbakhi
2021-12-15 15:00 - 17:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
6 p.m. ET Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2021
Exploring Poetry through Performance Workshop with George Abraham and Fargo Tbakhi
In-person at AANM Russell J. Ebeid Library & Resource Center OR virtual via Zoom
Purchase in-person tickets
Museum Members: $12
General Public: $15
Students: $10
OR register for FREE virtual attendance
Although performance strategies and techniques are not often taught within mainstream poetry spaces, they can offer unique modes of inspiration and revision for poets. This workshop will explore poets who use performance in dynamic ways, learning practical techniques and exercises for animating poems with performance.
Open to writers at all levels – we just ask that participants come with a piece they have already drafted and would like to expand with performance exercises. Participating writers will have the opportunity to perform their work at EVE — A Poetry Performance Project by Fargo Tbakhi and George Abraham on Saturday, Dec. 18 at 7 p.m. ET.
This is a hybrid workshop. In-person participants will attend at the AANM Library and virtual participants will attend via Zoom. All AANM guests are required to show proof of full vaccination, remain masked, and fill out a health screening form upon check-in in order to attend this event.
For questions, e-mail Kathryn Grabowski at KGrabowski@accesscommunity.org.

Fargo Nissim Tbakhi is a queer Palestinian American performance artist and writer. He is the winner of the Ghassan Kanafani Resistance Arts Prize, a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, and a Taurus. He has received fellowships from Rhizome DC, VisArts, Desert Nights Rising Stars, Halcyon Arts Lab, Mosaic Theater, and RAWI. His writing appears in Foglifter, Mizna, Peach Mag, Apex Magazine, Strange Horizons, the Shallow Ends, Prolit, and select bags of Nomadic Grounds Coffee. His performance work has been programmed at OUTsider Fest, INTER-SECTION Solo Fest, the Rachel Corrie Foundation’s Shuruq Festival, the Alwun House Monster’s Ball, Mosaic Theater, and has been supported by the Arizona Commission on the Arts.
George Abraham is a Palestinian American poet, writer, and engineer who was born and raised on unceded Timucuan lands (Jacksonville, FL). His debut poetry collection Birthright (Button Poetry) won the Arab American Book Award and the Big Other Book Award, and was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. He is a board member for the Radius of Arab American Writers, and recipient of fellowships from The Boston Foundation, and Kundiman. His poetry and nonfiction have appeared in The Nation, The Paris Review, The American Poetry Review, Mizna, and elsewhere. A graduate of Swarthmore College and Harvard University, Abraham is currently a Litowitz MFA+MA Candidate in poetry at Northwestern University.

EVE — A Poetry Performance Project by Fargo Tbakhi and George Abraham
2021-12-18 16:00 - 17:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
7 p.m. ET Saturday, Dec. 18, 2021
EVE — A Poetry Performance Project by Fargo Tbakhi and George Abraham
In-person at The Annex @ AANM OR virtual via online livestream
FREE with RSVP
Register for in-person attendance OR Register for virtual attendance
Join us for an evening of poetry and performance art with Fargo Tbakhi and George Abraham! This event will showcase work from the local community, featuring work composed in George and Fargo’s Exploring Poetry through Performance Workshop. Thereafter, Fargo and George will perform, for the first time ever, an excerpt from their residency project: EVE — A Palestinian Necropastoral, a re-imagining of Milton’s Paradise Lost through the lens of Palestinian liberation.
This is a hybrid performance. In-person participants will attend at The Annex @ AANM and virtual participants will attend via online livestream. All AANM guests are required to show proof of full vaccination, remain masked, and fill out a health screening form upon check-in in order to attend this event.
For questions, e-mail Kathryn Grabowski at KGrabowski@accesscommunity.org.

Fargo Nissim Tbakhi is a queer Palestinian American performance artist and writer. He is the winner of the Ghassan Kanafani Resistance Arts Prize, a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, and a Taurus. He has received fellowships from Rhizome DC, VisArts, Desert Nights Rising Stars, Halcyon Arts Lab, Mosaic Theater, and RAWI. His writing appears in Foglifter, Mizna, Peach Mag, Apex Magazine, Strange Horizons, the Shallow Ends, Prolit, and select bags of Nomadic Grounds Coffee. His performance work has been programmed at OUTsider Fest, INTER-SECTION Solo Fest, the Rachel Corrie Foundation’s Shuruq Festival, the Alwun House Monster’s Ball, Mosaic Theater, and has been supported by the Arizona Commission on the Arts.
George Abraham is a Palestinian American poet, writer, and engineer who was born and raised on unceded Timucuan lands (Jacksonville, FL). His debut poetry collection Birthright (Button Poetry) won the Arab American Book Award and the Big Other Book Award, and was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. He is a board member for the Radius of Arab American Writers, and recipient of fellowships from The Boston Foundation, and Kundiman. His poetry and nonfiction have appeared in The Nation, The Paris Review, The American Poetry Review, Mizna, and elsewhere. A graduate of Swarthmore College and Harvard University, Abraham is currently a Litowitz MFA+MA Candidate in poetry at Northwestern University.

Misna: The Experimental Issue Virtual Launch
2022-01-30 09:00 - 17:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
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.

The Water We Carry: Struggle, Daring, Dignity and Joy (virtual)
2022-03-05 14:00 - 16:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
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!

Naomi Shihab Nye Online Workshop: I’m Packed! From Oman to Michigan
2022-03-22 16:00 - 17:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
One Tuesday: March 22 from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. EST ONLINE

Price:

$30 Per Household

About the Workshop:
What is Home? To some it might look like a house with a metal roof. Some might see a kitchen with food cooking, while others might think about a place where they used to live. Whatever the answer – home is essential to the many ways we see ourselves. In this writing workshop, grandparents and grandchildren, families of all sorts, friends and even just you can get together and write about what home means to you. Naomi’s new book The Turtle of Michigan (sequel to Turtle of Oman) will guide the writing prompts, including the opportunity to share if you choose.
The book is included with the workshop
About the Book:
Award-winning author Naomi Shihab Nye’s highly anticipated sequel to The Turtle of Oman explores immigration, family, and what it means to feel at home. Carrying a suitcase and memories of Oman, Aref experiences the excitement and nervousness that accompanies moving to a new home. The Turtle of Michigan is a great choice for reading aloud and a must-have for younger middle grade readers.
One Tuesday: March 22 from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. EST ONLINE

About the Author:
Naomi Shihab Nye is the current U.S. Young People’s Poet Laureate, anthologist and the acclaimed author of Habibi: A Novel and Sitti’s Secrets, a picture book, which was based on her own experiences visiting her beloved Sitti in Palestine. Her book 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East was a finalist for the National Book Award. She has taught writing and worked in schools all over the world, including in Muscat, Oman. She lives in San Antonio, Texas.

REFUND POLICY: Please note that we can issue class refunds up until seven (7) days before the first class session.

Poetry Across Languages with Fady Joudah, Tomás Q. Morín, and Niina Pollari
2022-04-11 15:00 - 16:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
The New York Public Library’s World Literature Festival celebrates books and writers from around the world and reflects the languages spoken in our communities. Discover free author talks, resources, book recommendations, and more for all ages in world languages.
Join the Library as we welcome Fady Joudah, Tomás Q. Morín, and Niina Pollari in conversation in English in the panel “Poetry Across Languages”.
This event is ONLINE ONLY.
Register Here!

Fady Joudah has published five collections of poems: The Earth in the Attic; Alight; Textu; a book-long sequence of short poems whose meter is based on cellphone character count; Footnotes in the Order of Disappearance; and, most recently, Tethered to Stars. He has translated several collections of poetry from the Arabic and is the co-editor and co-founder of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize. He was a winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition in 2007 and has received a PEN award, a Banipal/Times Literary Supplement prize from the UK, the Griffin Poetry Prize, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is an Editor-at-Large for Milkweed Editions. He lives in Houston, with his wife and kids, where he practices internal medicine. Photo credit © Cybele Knowles.
Tomás Q. Morín is the author of the collection of poems Machete and the forthcoming memoir Let Me Count the Ways, as well as the poetry collections Patient Zero and A Larger Country. He is co-editor with Mari L’Esperance of the anthology, Coming Close: Forty Essays on Philip Levine, and translator of The Heights of Macchu Picchu by Pablo Neruda. He teaches at Rice University and Vermont College of Fine Arts. Photo credit © Jorge Sanhueza-Lyon.
Niina Pollari is a poet and Finnish translator. She is the author of the poetry collections Path of Totality (Soft Skull 2022) and Dead Horse (Birds, LLC 2015), and the translator of Tytti Heikkinen’s The Warmth of the Taxidermied Animal (Action Books 2012).
Join the staff of the Yorkville, Belmont and Bronx Library Center libraries for this exciting literary conversation.
Note: Program will be recorded.

Revolutionary Arab Women in Poetry: streaming online
2022-05-28 - 2022-06-01
This event features live readings from two incredible Arab-American poets Priscilla Wathington and Lena Khalaf Tuffaha with the theme of REVOLUTION.
The readings will be followed by a discussion moderated by Zeina Azzam.
This event would not be possible without the assistance and support of Summer Farah and the Radius of Arab American Writers (RAWI).

Zeina Hashem Beck (virtual)
2022-07-13 18:00 - 19:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Much-praised Lebanese poet Zeina Hashem Beck makes this welcome visit by virtual means to read from her newly published third full-length collection, O (Penguin Poets). Writing in Arabic and English, she cuts to the quick here, in form, range, breadth – and breath.
“O is so full of life, of music and passion for life. In ghazals, odes, revolution songs and invocations of O the world comes vividly alive: ‘I carry a name & many cities,’ writes Hashem Beck, as her poems unfold the abundance of our world. Abundance, yes: so much tenderness, so much passion in these pages: just one language can’t contain it all, so the poet gives us ‘Duets,’ joining Arabic and English in the same stanza. The lyricism is a vehicle of emotional impact … Hashem Beck’s prayer isn’t shy of calling for revolution, of asking ‘to occupy the streets, bring the tires, the sofas, the drums, the blaring cars.’ Zeina Hashem Beck’s prayer isn’t afraid of stories, of new music on your balconies. Listen. Her O brims with the world.” —Ilya Kaminsky.
“Western readers often consume books by international authors like perverse anthropologists, scanning for a word or phrase that buttresses their ill-informed preconceptions, cudgeling a writer’s meticulously woven lyric into vapid social generality. Zeina Hashem Beck’s O rebukes this tendency explicitly in an early poem: “I’m tired of metaphors about peace. // I prefer dark chocolate in the morning, / & a good window.” And then throughout the collection, she rebukes it with her truly undeniable poems—rhymes braid across multiple languages, intricate forms fracture under the weight of their subjects. In one unforgettable piece, a subtle incantation ends on the name of a flower that looses itself across the page like so many petals. Unforgettable, undeniable—these are the words I keep coming back to with O. Anyone who reads it in earnest will emerge better made.” —Kaveh Akbar.
Zeina Hashem Beck’s other collections include Louder Than Hearts, To Live in Autumn, and the chapbooks 3arabi Song and There Was and How Much There Was.

Virtually hosted by Elliott Bay Book Company.

(Live and In person) SHOP EVENTS STAFF PICKS ABOUT US MY ACCOUNT CONTACT Claire Schwartz, Gabrielle Bates, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha
2022-08-17 19:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Open Books, 108 Cherry Street, Seattle, WA, 98104, United States
A Seattle visit and a remarkable new debut by New York-based poet Claire Schwartz helps occasion what would be an excellent evening of work here as she is joined by esteemed Seattle poets Gabrielle Bates and Lena Khalaf Tuffaha. Claire Schwartz, who is poetry editor of Jewish Currents, has a compelling first book out from Graywolf, Civil Service.
“The power of this book is in its uncontrollable private will to imagine against the public failure of imagination. The poet dismembers our political reality into the double-edged lines, into the bare and ashamed symbols and silences. Brutal and coy, Claire Schwartz creates a scream out of irony and a rhythm out of the four corners of the page.”—Valzhyna Mort.
“We’ve all heard the cliché ‘poems are bombs.’ But Claire Schwartz’s incendiaries whisper hard truths and harder questions, beckoning us closer, seeping gently into our consciousness before exploding the passive and placid thinking that allow us to go about our ‘normal’ lives. Civil Service shines a bright light onto a dark world ruled by property, prisons, patriarchy, and profit.”—Robin D. G. Kelley.
Gabrielle Bates has her debut poetry collection, Judas Goat coming from Tin House Books in 2023, works at Open Books: A Poem Emporium and co-hosts the podcast The Poet Salon.
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is most recently the Washington State Book Award winner of Water & Salt (Red Hen Press) and Arab in Newsland, winner of the Two Sylvias Chapbook Prize.
This reading has now been moved to our friends and colleagues at Open Books: A Poem Emporium.

New Third World Presents: Launch Party for Unceded Land by Issam Zineh
2022-08-20 10:00 - 11:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Featuring George Abraham, Ruth Awad, Carolina Ebeid, Adele Elise Williams, and Issam Zineh.

About this event

Join us for a poetry reading and virtual celebration of highly anticipated debut collection from poet and scientist Issam Zineh – Unceded Land (Trio House Press, 2022) 🖤 Saturday, August 20 at 1pn Eastern 🖤
Featuring readings by George Abraham, Ruth Awad, Carolina Ebeid, Adele Elise Williams, and Issam Zineh.
Hosted by the New Third World Reading Series 🖤
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This is a virtual event and will be hosted on Zoom. RSVP below to receive the Zoom link and reminder emails ahead of the event 🌹
This event is funded in part by Poets & Writers through public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.

Rajiv Mohabir and Mortada Gzar - Live at Elliott Bay
2022-09-07 19:00 - 20:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
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.

Jamal Gabobe presents 'The Path of Difference' at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park
2022-09-19 19:00 - 20:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Third Place Books – Lake Forest Park, 17171 Bothell Way NE #A101, Lake Forest Park, WA, 98155, United States
Third Place Books welcomes local poet Jamal Gabobe to our Lake Forest Park store! Gabobe will be discussing his third collection of poetry The Path of Difference. This event is free and open to the public. Registration is required in advance.
Copies of The Path of Difference 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!

Benefit for the Palestine Writing Workshop with Maya Abu Al-Hayyat
2022-10-29 11:00 - 12:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Virtual
REGISTER NOW, www.mecaforpeace.org/lastleaf to hear the director of the Palestine Writing Workshop, Maya Abu Al-Hayyat— on Saturday, October 29, 11am PT / 2pm ET — with her new book, “You Can Be the Last Leaf: Selected Poems”. She and Deema K. Shehabi will share poetry and conversation in this virtual event.
Booklist wrote about Maya’s new book, “Al-Hayyat’s latest devastating and courageous collection captures the precarious everyday lives of Palestinians with enormous empathy and glistening clarity.”

Maya Abu Al-Hayyat is a Palestinian writer, storyteller, and mother based in occupied East Jerusalem. Each day she passes through Israeli checkpoints, like the infamous Qalandia checkpoint, to direct the Palestine Writing Workshop, one of MECA’s partner organizations. Maya and her team at the Palestine Writing Workshop have published award-winning Arabic children’s books and led hundreds of interactive workshops from Nablus to Silwan to Gaza for children, youth, librarians and parents on reading aloud, creative writing, and storytelling. Her work is grounded in the belief that art and literature can change lives and aims to improve Palestinian children’s literacy and also encourage their imaginations. She is a gifted storyteller who captures the attention of children of all ages (and adults too!).Maya also runs writing courses for former prisoners, helping them transform trauma into art.
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 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.

Please join us to learn more about Maya’s work and life in Palestine!
