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Join our monthly online series “Words for Palestine” which aims to center and highlight Palestinian voices during this devastating time. Featured readers this month include Deema K. Shehabi, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha and mejdulene bernard shomali.

“Words For Palestine” is presented by the Arab American National Museum and co-sponsored by Mizna, Palestine Writes and RAWI, and is free with RSVP. We encourage you to make a donation to support the work of Palestine Legal and Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF). Palestine Legal is an organization dedicated to protecting the civil and constitutional rights of people in the U.S. who speak out for Palestinian freedom. PCRF is the primary humanitarian organization in Palestine, providing crucial and life-saving relief and humanitarian aid in Gaza.

About the Readers

Deema K. Shehabi is a Palestinian-American poet, writer, and editor. Deema is the author of Thirteen Departures from the Moon and co-editor with Beau Beausoleil of Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here, for which she received a Northern California Book Award. She’s also co-author of Diaspo/Renga with Marilyn Hacker and winner of the Nazim Hikmet poetry competition in 2018. Deema’s work has appeared widely in literary magazines and anthologies, and her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize several times. For more information, please visit her website at www.deemakshehabi.com

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is a poet, essayist, and translator. She is the author of three books of poetry, Water & Salt, winner of the 2018 Washington State Book Award, Kaan and Her Sisters (Trio House Press, 2023), and Something About Living, winner of the 2022 Akron Poetry Prize. (University of Akron Press, 2024). Tuffaha’s work has been published or is forthcoming in journals including Michigan Quarterly Review, The Nation, Poetry, and Prairie Schooner. She was the 2022 curator of the translation series, Poems from Palestine at the Baffler magazine. She is currently curating a monthly feature on Palestinian writing at Words Without Borders, entitled Against Forgetting.

mejdulene bernard shomali is a queer Palestinian poet and associate professor in gender, women’s, and sexuality studies at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. her first book, Between Banat: Queer Arab Critique and Transnational Arab Archives, was published by Duke University Press in 2023. her chapbook, agriculture of grief: prayers for my father’s dementia, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in August 2024.

For questions, e-mail Rewa Zeinati at rzeinati@accesscommunity.org