Video: A panel of Muslim writers who read from works recently published in New Moons: Contemporary Writing by North American Muslims, an anthology published by Red Hen Press and edited by Kazim Ali.

Watch the recording below:

Our goal is to create a dialogue that showcases the intersections and diversity amongst Muslims.

The event draws inspiration from Kazim Ali’s introduction to the anthology which says: “This collection includes the religious of all stripes; practicing and nonpracticing; the cultural Muslim; the secular Muslim; the feminist Muslim; Muslims of various gender identities, sexualities, and national origins”.

The writers within are converts, reverts, “good” Muslims, “bad” Muslims, born Muslim, ex-Muslim, and trying-to-be or failing-to-be Muslim.

This collection of voices ought to be a symphony and cacophony at once, like the body of Muslims as they are today.

To learn more about the anthology, please visit the Red Hen Press website.

About the Writers

Kazim Ali was born in the United Kingdom and has lived transnationally in the United States, Canada, India, France, and the Middle East. His books encompass multiple genres, including several volumes of poetry, novels, and translations. He is currently a Professor of Literature at the University of California, San Diego. His newest books are a volume of three long poems entitled The Voice of Sheila Chandra and a memoir of his Canadian childhood, Northern Light: Power, Land, and the Memory of Water.

Ayeh Bandeh-Ahmadi’s memoir-in-stories, “Ayat,” was a finalist for the First Pages Prize and the Chautauqua Foundation’s Janus Prize, recognizing an emerging writer’s work for daring innovations that reorder literary conventions and readers’ imaginations. Her writing has appeared in Entropy’s Top 25, No Tokens and PANK; has been recognized with support from Millay Arts, the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation’s Creative Fellowship, and the Bread Loaf Katharine Bakeless Nason Scholarship; and appears in the New Moons anthology of Contemporary Writing from North American Muslims from Red Hen Press. She was part of a ten-person team responsible for raising $4T to support COVID stimulus at the U.S. Treasury Dept. and has taught personal essay to Washington D.C. high school students for PEN/Faulkner.

Hazem Fahmy is a writer and critic from Cairo. His debut chapbook, Red//Jild//Prayer won the 2017 Diode Editions Contest, and his second, Waiting for Frank Ocean in Cairo, is forthcoming from Half-Mystic Press in March 2022. A Kundiman and Watering Hole Fellow, his poetry has appeared, or is forthcoming in The Best American Poetry 2020, AAWW, The Boston Review, and Prairie Schooner. His criticism has appeared, or is forthcoming, in The Los Angeles Review of Books, Mubi Notebook, Reverse Shot, and Mizna.

Barrak Alzaid is a writer of memoir, prose, poetry, and art criticism whose current project, Fabulous, relates his queer coming of age in Kuwait. His poem Fa’et was awarded a first-place prize by Nasiona Magazine in their inaugural micro nonfiction and poetry competition. Excerpts of his memoir are published in several anthologies including The Ordinary Chaos of Being Human: Tales from Many Muslim Worlds (Penguin SEA), Emerge: 2018 Lambda Fellows Anthology, and in New Moons, an anthology of Muslim writing edited by Kazim Ali (Redhen Press). He has conducted fellowships, workshops and residencies through Delfina Foundation, Fine Arts Works Center and Lambda Literary Retreat. He is a founding member of the artist collective GCC.