January 26, 2024

Mizna at AWP 2024

by Lamia Abukhadra | in Literary

The 2024 AWP Conference & Bookfair takes place February 7–10, 2024 in Kansas City, Oklahoma. Join Mizna for a long weekend of SWANA lit! At this year’s conference, Mizna will present an AWP Featured Panel Event with Noor Naga and Iman Mersal, an AWP offsite event, and an offsite party. Learn more about how to attend the AWP 2024 here.

Find Mizna + RAWI at Booth #1431

Find Mizna journals and merch for the duration of AWP 2024 at booth #1431. We’ll be sharing the booth with our friends at RAWI!

AWP SALE: Subscribe to Mizna during AWP and receive a FREE copy of any back-issue!

Book Signings at Booth #1431

Check back here for an updated schedule of book signings with SWANA authors at AWP.

February 8

1:30–3:00pm: Sarah Cypher

3:30–4:30pm: Zeina Azzam

February 9

10:30–11:00am: Elina Katrin

11–12:30pm: Aliah Lavonne Tigh

1–1:30pm: Issam Zineh

1:30–3pm: Tracy Fuad

February 10

11–11:30am: Mona Kareem

Mizna Events at AWP

February 7
Mizna AWP Offsite
Writers for Palestine @ AWP

To kick off AWP 2024, join us in centering Palestine in our hearts and minds at an offsite reading at The Bird, presented by Mizna, RAWI, Al-Hadaf, and WAWOG.

Featured readers include Issam Zineh, Kamelya Omayma Youssef, Abdelrahman ElGendy, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Zeyn Joukhadar, Willie Nour, Mona Kareem, Moheb Soliman, Andrea Abi-Karam, Elina Katrin, Kazim Ali, Zeina Azzam, Tariq Luthun, and more.

The event will take place at the The Bird, 103 W 19 St Kansas City, MO 64108, which is a 7 minute walk from AWP. Doors will open at 6:30 and space is limited.

RSVP here

February 8
AWP Party
Presented by n+1, Deep Vellum, Dorothy, Mizna, and The Yale Review

If you live in Kansas City, or are headed there for AWP, join us for a party on Thursday, February 8! We’ll be celebrating 20 years of n+1, alongside our friends at Deep Vellum, Dorothy Project, Mizna, and The Yale Review. Entry is free, as are sandwiches and your first drink.

When: Thursday, February 8, 6:30–9:30 PM
Where: Big Mood Natural Wine Bar: 2020 Baltimore Ave. Suite 102
Kansas City, MO

February 10
AWP 2024 Featured Event
Futures for SWANA Poetry

The 2024 AWP Conference & Bookfair takes place February 7–10, 2024 in Kansas City, Missouri.

As a featured event at this year’s AWP, Mizna hosts two critically acclaimed Egyptian writers, poet Iman Mersal and poet-novelist Noor Naga in a reading and conversation with Mizna’s Executive Editor George Abraham. The dialogue will explore the ways inherent transnational and multilingual trajectories of the poets’ lived experiences affect their writing. What roles can Arabophone literature play in shaping the future trajectory of poetry in and beyond English?

When: Saturday, February 10, 2024 at 12:10pm
Where: Ballroom B, Level 2, Kansas City Convention Center

Mizna’s Picks:

Check out the other SWANA-centered events and panels at AWP!

More SWANA AWP 2024 Events

February 8 2023
AWP Offsite: We Call to the Eye and the Night: Love Poems by Writers of Arab Heritage

An evening of poetry with contributors to We Call to the Eye & the Night: Love Poems
in which the borders between languages fall away and only poetry remains. Featuring poets janan alexandra, Zeina Hashem Beck, Majda Gama, Zeyn Joukhadar, Tariq Luthun, Siwar Massanat, Philip Metres, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

February 8 2023
AWP Offsite: Midwest Poets Series 40th Anniversary Celebration and Reading

In honor of the 40th year of the founding of the Midwest Poets Series, Rockhurst University will host a celebratory reading event featuring six nationally-known guest poets in downtown Kansas City. George Abraham, Leila Chatti, Marlin M. Jenkins, Karyna McGlynn, Erika Meitner and Khadijah Queen will read a selection of works. Register in advance here as seating is limited. Learn more

AWP 2024 SWANA Panels

PANEL DISCUSSION F164:  February 9 at 12:10pm / More Than Our Tongues: Women of Color Writing with Arabic, Chinese, and Korean ft. Su Cho, Anni Liu, Alycia Pirmohamed, Zeina Hashem Beck

How do we decide when to fold in the language we grew up with in our poetry? What effects do the use of our “other” languages have, and what does it make possible? This often becomes a question of negotiation and balance. We’ll shift that paradigm into one that puts not the audience, but the poet first. We’ll discuss the joys and unanswered questions we have about this process, how we’ve learned and changed our view on this, and, of course, the delightful surprises that come along the way.

Room 2102B, Kansas City Convention Center, Street Level

PANEL DISCUSSION  F220: February 9 at 3:20pm Widening the Circle: Queer/Trans SWANA Writers on Navigating Space and Self ft. Mahru Elahi, Nancy Agabian, Tracy Fuad, Bobuq Sayed, Pınar Banu Yaşar

Featuring Queer/Trans SWANA (Southwest Asian North African) writers, this multiple genre panel centers a discussion of how we build bridges, defying orientalist narratives by writing into the complexities of our hybrid identities. At a time when our communities continue to be marginalized in the United States, we will focus on the tension between homeland and diaspora, the power and violence of myths, and our need to queer form to represent ourselves, breaking convention and narrative in the process.

Room 2210, Kansas City Convention Center, Street Level

ARAB AMERICAN CAUCUS  F260 : February 9 at 6:30pm with Glenn Shaheen, Jameelah Lang

This will be a town-hall style meeting, creating a much needed space for SWANA writers to build and connect within AWP. We invite established and emerging writers, editors, students, scholars, and organizers, and aim for the caucus to facilitate networking and exchange on Arab American literary endeavors, craft, publishing, poetics, and praxis. Our caucus seeks to empower and center the voices of underrepresented Americans with roots in the Arab world.

Room 2215C, Kansas City Convention Center, Street Level.

PANEL DISCUSSION  S169: February 10 at 12:10pm / Beyond Zoom: Building Vibrant Literary Communities in a New Hybrid Era ft. Karina Muniz-Pagan, Minal Hajratwala, Randy Winston, Maceo Nafisah Cabrera-Estevez, Juanita Mantz

Community is essential to a writer’s growth, but what do you do when spaces are inhospitable to your community? Build your own! These innovative authors share how they’ve built thriving programs for diverse NYC fiction writers, global Muslim writers, women/nonbinary writers, domestic workers, and BIPOC+ authors. We share strategies and tools to empower anyone eager to create a nurturing space that centers writers of color, language justice, disability justice, and voices at the intersections.

Room 2104B, Kansas City Convention Center, Street Level

PANEL DISCUSSION  S205: February 10 at 1:45pm / Representations of Arab American Communities in Poetry & Prose ft. Ghassan Zeineddine , Sally Howell , Alise Alousi , Kamelya Youssef

This panel aims to provide intimate glimpses into the Arab American communities in the Detroit metropolitan region, which is home to the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the country. Through works of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, the panelists will discuss the creative process of dramatizing a diverse range of Arab ethnicities and voices, as well as capturing the complexities of community life.

Room 2215A, Kansas City Convention Center, Street Level