Events

Event details

Mizna presents a Los Angeles reading and fundraiser for Gaza. This event benefits the Middle East Children’s Alliance’s initiatives in Gaza and features readings from Safia Elhillo, Randa Jarrar, Deena Falconetti, Lameece Issaq, Jessica Abughattas, Maha Chehlaoui, Sara Yanni, and Phonodelica. Presented with Kaya Press.

When: February 17, 2024 at 7pm, doors at 6:30pm
Where: 2220 Arts + Archives, 2220 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90057
RSVP Here

Entrance is free, please direct all donations for Gaza here.

ABOUT THE READERS

Safia Elhillo is Sudanese by way of Washington, DC. She is the author of The January Children (University of Nebraska Press, 2017), Girls That Never Die (One World/Random House, 2022), and the novel in verse Home Is Not a Country (Make Me a World/Random House, 2021). With Fatimah Asghar, she is co-editor of the anthology Halal If You Hear Me (Haymarket Books, 2019).

Randa Jarrar is the author of the memoir Love Is an Ex-Country, the novel A Map of Home, and the collection of stories Him, Me, Muhammad Ali. She is a filmmaker and actor who has appeared in independent films and on the A24 TV shows Ramy and #1 Happy Family USA. She is a recipient of a Creative Capital Award, an American Book Award, and others. She lives in Los Angeles.

Jessica Abughattas is the author of an award-winning collection of poetry, Strip (University of Arkansas, 2020). Her short poetry film, Dinner Party, premiered at Mizna’s Twin Cities Arab Film Festival in 2021. Her poems appear in Guernica, Los Angeles Review of Books, the Yale Review, and elsewhere.

Lameece Issaq is an actor, writer, and co-founder/former artistic director of Noor Theatre. Lameece has appeared in theater productions including The Fever Chart, Stuff Happens, The Black Eyed, and Noura. She’s written short plays produced in The New York Arab-American Comedy Festival as well as Noor & Hadi Go to Hogwarts; Orb Weaver, and Nooha’s List, part of the compilation play, Motherhood Outloud. Her full length play Food and Fadwa (2011) premiered off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop in a production she co-produced and starred in. She co-wrote the film Abe, which premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. She starred in her most recent play, A Good Day to Me, Not to You, which premiered off-Broadway at the Connelly Theater in 2023. Lameece is a member of AEA and SAG AFTRA.

Sarah Yanni is a Mexican-Egyptian writer in Los Angeles. Her writing has appeared in Mizna, Autostraddle, Iterant Mag, Dirt Children, SPECTRA Poets, and elsewhere. With James Moon, she co-founded Lola Goes By Tom, a queer zine project, and her second chapbook, Hard Crush is forthcoming from Wonder Press.

Deena Falconetti is a posture specialist, movement coach, and mind body educator currently based in California.

Maha Chehlaoui is a writer, producer, facilitator, and performer of Syrian Filipina descent. She is most proud of growing the Arab American theater community in New York, creating things like Nibras Theater Collective and Noor Theatre and supporting The NY Arab American Comedy Festival in the fight to tell our stories, sharing our humor, warmth, and beleaguered resilience.

Dr. Donia Jarrar, aka Phonodelica (she/they) is composer-performer, improviser, orchestrator, arranger, producer, and educator known for her unique use of field recordings, working with oral histories and their relationship to the composition and shaping of new musical works across varying genres. Jarrar releases music under the solo moniker Phonodelica, an experimental sound project which the Quietus recognized as “one of the more striking examples of artistic endeavour of this decade.”