Anti-Mosque Protesters are pointing rented missiles at the site of the NYC mosque. An Amazing book about Arab-Americans is being protested by right-wing racists. And Arab-Americans are making movies, writing books, raising families, and playing football. Dumbass bigots of America: You can’t erase us.
Greetings from my new desk
5 Aug
1600 miles and many rest stops later, I’ve moved to California’s central valley. I’ve just joined the English Department and MFA program at CSU Fresno and I’m so excited to begin teaching creative writing again.
Of all the things I hope to teach/drill into my students, revision will probably top the list. I’ve been revising my new novel since January and, just as it was with the 1st novel, revision is probably the hardest thing I’ve had to do. Machete-ing darlings left and right, re-routing the protagonist, playing with chronology, introducing new characters better, deepening their relationships to each other, and saving all my good ideas for the novel, not this blog- wink, wink.
Fab new interview with FEN
14 Jul
FEN Magazine is one of my new discoveries. Their tagline is, “Your definitive source for all things Arab, American, and Art.” Well! I love all those three things! So yay. I did a short interview with them, and you can read it here.
Arab-American comic Marguerite Dabaie, interviewed
6 Jul
I first heard of Marguerite Dabaie online, then read her books The Hookah Girl and Other True Stories (Volumes 1 & 2). I shared them with my son, the way I always try to share wonderful Arab-American work with him. I just came across this fantastic interview with Dabaie in Fen Magazine, where she talks about everything from 9/11 to education to shunning politics to embracing her identity.
Sonya Tayeh
25 Jun
… my newest inspiration is an Arab-American dancer from Detroit. Swoon! http://www.sonyatayehdance.com/
I first saw her on So You Think You Can Dance. She doesn’t just rock a unique style– an Allah necklace paired with red-lightening-bolt earrings and a zebra-print top– she’s an incredibly talented choreographer. I watched her dance-reel in awe: her dancers fight, they love, they do combat, they do elegance, and they make us feel.
Thanks, Sonya! You’ve inspired a sista.
Him, Me, Muhammad Ali
9 Jun
That’s the title of my new short story in Guernica Magazine this month. It’s told from the point of view of a young, newly orphaned woman who was conceived at the Ali-Foreman fight in then-Zaire. Enjoy!
“We speak cathedrals when we speak:” the 2010 RAWI conference
9 Jun
RAWI, the Radius of Arab American Writers, held its conference at the University of Michigan this past week. It featured two readings a day, by young and more established poets, playwrights, and novelists. The conference also included panels on topics as diverse at queering orientalism and teaching Arab-American literature. In solidarity, two African-American poets read, and a representative from the Asian-American Writer’s Workshop participated. In addition, writers enjoyed dancing, dinners, and drinks. The conference felt both like a wedding and (for some who may not have felt supported by their community before) a baptism. The dinner on the final night, which honored many of our writers, was capped in part by a speech from Samuel Hazo. Hazo read a poem from memory and many people were weeping at the end of the poem. I wanted to include it here for everyone who missed the conference, and for everyone who was there and wants to hold onto the poem as a sort of parting gift.
To All my Mariners in One
Forget the many who talk
much, say little, mean
less and matter least.
Forget
we live in times when broadcasts
of Tchaikovsky’s 5th precede
announcements of the death
of tyrants,
Forget that life
for governments is priced
war-cheap but kidnap-high.
Our seamanship is not with such.
From port to port we learn
that “depths last longer
than heights,” that years are
meant to disappear like wakes,
that nothing but the sun stands
still.
We share the sweeter
alphabets of laughter and slow
languages of pain.
Common
as coal, we find in one another’s
eyes the quiet diamonds
that are worth the world.
Drawn
by the song of our keel, who
are we but horizons coming true?
Let others wear their memories
like jewelry.
We’re of the few
who work apart so well
together when we must.
We speak cathedrals when we speak
and trust no promise but
the pure supremacy of tears.
What
more can we expect?
The sea’s
blue mischief may be waiting
for its time and place, but still
we have the stars to guide us.
We have the wind for company.
We have ourselves.
We have a sailor’s faith that says
not even dying can divide us.
Amen!
Media Roundup
4 May
Hey all, here are some new links about Beirut39.
On the BBC World Service, yours truly is interviewed with Najwan Darwish, Hyam Yared, and others.
Here, CNN covers the festival.
The LA Times Blog showed up at our event with Abdelkader Benali and Youssef Rakha.
The Daily Star featured Abdelkader and me in their article about the fest.
And Publishers Weekly reviewed our anthology, which will be out in June in the US!
I’m now back from the amazing PEN World Voices Festival, where I got to see so many incredible writers share their views on everything from pseudonyms, writing routines, politics and art. I felt lucky to go, and inspired to return to my current project.
Sketches from Beirut
20 Apr
1.
“I am a mere question mark on the map of this city,” A. #1 says in the hotel bar. R. tells me to turn around, and when I do, I see that the sun has risen over the sea. We have managed to drink and stay up all night.
“I am a mere question mark on the map of this city,” A. #1 says in the hotel bar. R. tells me to turn around, and when I do, I see that the sun has risen over the sea. We have managed to drink and stay up all night.
2.
Two women in niqab covering everything but their eyes point at me in my tight red dress and laugh. They think I am the funny-looking one, the fat one in the fishnets. They laugh on the outside, hiding under their tents. I laugh on the inside, at the irony of the moment.
3.
In the van to the sea-side bar, we talk and joke animatedly. An hour passes. Silence falls. We are all deflated. Suddenly, A.#2 looks over at me and tells me that L., an American, had stopped with him in the street earlier and apologized, on behalf of America, for the invasion Iraq. She cried. I asked him if he felt strange. He said he felt very moved. He said he wished he could answer her but there was a language issue. I ask him what he would have said, expecting him to say; I am not Iraq and you are not America. We are just two, separate, people. But he says, I would have told her that I see these deaths as the price one pays for democracy. Silence in the van again.
4.
A.#3 stands up and gives an acceptance speech to the volunteers and organizers on the writers’ behalf. Except he is better-prepared and more charming than I will ever be. I am hungover.
5.
I am telling a story. I say, “they kicked me out when they found out I was pregnant.” The entire table at lunch goes quite. I give details.
6.
We find the British Councilman’s house- but only after a half hour’s worth of botched directions. There are three soldiers outside. One of them hits on H. There is an open bar inside.
7.
At the Barometre in Hamra, we dance. I tell A.#4 about the time I saw the Nile and it looked like tin.
8. On night #3, a revolution. All the writers and all the volunteers are drunk in the hotel lobby dancing. Screw the panels and discussions. We want to live.
9.
We don’t go to Abu Elie’s communist bar, but we see a young man pasting blank fliers then standing in the dark alleyway to fill them in with pen. He is Abu-Elie’s son.
10.
Our moderator, the TV anchor, wants to know where the audience is, even though it’s our event, not hers. She’s used to her audience. The event was billed a “women’s conversation.” Almost no one shows. The other two writers and I have a blast putting a pin against the balloon of the TV anchor’s rigid ideas of femininity- and in her stupid botoxed cheeks.
11.
A woman walks down the street with a big white bandage over her nose. She displays her alteration proudly. And we, who are not yet altered, are making our way to yet another open bar to fix that.
12.
I. is the official crush of the festival. Every man there wants to sleep with her. I suspect someone won.
13.
In my hotel room I laugh a lot. I hope I am not loud. I am told by M., my fellow writer, that I am indeed loud.
14.
I have a minute at the mike. I remember L. from Lebanon who died last year. I speak in her memory. I cry a little. Then I laugh.
15.
We all joke that we want to highjack a plane for literature. A.#3 says, “We will make you listen to our bad poetry!” On the real plane back, as the rude flight attendant tells me I am too fat for the exit row, I yearn for prose.
Over on the Utne Blog
2 Apr
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