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Join us in launching the summer 2021 issue of Mizna, featuring readings by Hassan Saby, Maya Salameh, Nardine Taleb and Rania Mamoun.

This virtual reading takes place Sunday, October 17, 2021 at 5pm CT.

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PRE-ORDER MIZNA 22.1

>>ABOUT THE AUTHORS<<

Hassan Saby is the manifestation of our community’s collective homophobia.

Maya Salameh is a poet fellow of the William Male Foundation and a 2016 National Student Poet, America’s highest honor for youth poets. She is the winner of the 2022 Etel Adnan Prize, through which her debut poetry collection, HOW TO MAKE AN ALGORITHM IN THE MICROWAVE, will be published in 2022. Her poems have appeared in The Rumpus, Asian American Writer’s Workshop, and The Brooklyn Review, among others. Maya is the author of rooh (Paper Nautilus Press 2020).

Nardine Taleb is an Egyptian-American writer, speech therapist, and Prose Editor of the online literary journal Gordon Square Review based in Cleveland, Ohio. Her work has been published in Hobart, Rattle, The Commuter, Frontier Poetry, and others. You can find her at the following social media platforms: Twitter: @nardineta / IG: @nardineta

Rania Mamoun is a Sudanese writer and activist. Mamoun has published two novels in Arabic, Flash Akhdar (Green Flash) and Ibn-al-Shams (Son of the Sun). She is the author of the short story collection 13 Sharen Min Isharaq al Shams (Thirteen Months of Sunrise), which was translated to English by Elisabeth Jaquette, published by Comma Press in 2019, and shortlisted for the 2020 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation. Mamoun’s writing has appeared in English translation in Banipal Magazine, Words Without Borders, and the collections The Book of Khartoum and Banthology, both from Comma Press, and in French translation by Xavier Luffin for Magellan & Cie’s Nouvelles du Soudan. Rania Mamoun was a Former editor of Al Thaqafi’s culture Magazine and she was frequent contributor to Al Doha Magazine, Mamoun has recently published articles and, poems and short stories in Shenandoah Literary Journal, Al Baeed Magazine, Kikah Magazine, Al Araby UK, and Al Democrati, a Sudanese newspaper.

>>ABOUT MIZNA 22.1<<

The summer issue of Mizna’s award-winning literary journal, Mizna: SWANA Literature + Art, features a dynamic group of authors—many of whom are new to the Mizna community—engaging with and expanding the social realities relevant to the Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) experience and community.

In this issue, Mizna reveals a change to our subtitle, now SWANA Literature + Art, from the previous, Prose, Poetry, and Art Exploring Arab America. This comes as a result of deep, ongoing internal dialog about decolonizing and being more expansive in the framing of ourselves and our communities. In place of a foreword, the issue features reflections from Mizna’s community about what the shift to the term SWANA represents.

Contributors to Mizna 22.1 are: Andrea Abi-Karam, Philipe AbiYouness, leena aboutaleb, Jessica Abughattas, Sarah Ghazal Ali, Arwa Alsamarae, Yasmine Ameli, Sara Elkamel, Mariam Gomaa, Farah Hamade, Kaleem Hawa, Nofel, Nour Kamel, Rania Mamoun, Yara Omer, Hassan Saby, Lubna Safi, Maya Salameh, Nardine Taleb, Alene Terzian-Zeitounian, and Sumeja Tulic. The issue also features visual art from renowned Moroccan modernist Mohamed Melehi.

>>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. A recording of the launch will be available shortly after the event. Please email miznaATmizna.org with any questions regarding accessibility.