Two Launches

Thanks to the wonderful Hollay Ghadery, I was invited to launch my novel in Hamilton at The City and The City Books and it was a wonderful time.

I was already lucky enough to have read The Unraveling of Ou by Hollay, but meeting new authors and adding their books to my already too long TBR is a joy. Not All Dragons by David Ly and The Library Cosmic by Ben Berman Ghan.

Thank you so much to The City and The City Books for hosting us. There are three signed copies of my novel "Under The Full and Crescent Moon" there if you want to get a copy for yourself! Hamilton has been a really great place for me in my marketing efforts for my own novel. They do really well with having an amazing scene in the Hammer and I hope it can thrive even though life keeps getting harder and we all keep feeling the squeeze.

Pizza Before We Die Launch

A completely unexpected benefit of having had a novel published is the wonderful people I've been blessed to meet.

Back on the 5th of May I attended a book launch in Toronto and took the opportunity to meet someone who I have admired for a long time in the city, a person I never conceived of meeting, just another figure I'd followed from the news. That's El-Farouk Khaki, part of both the Muslim community, and the Pride community, and advocated for both for such a long time in Toronto. It's appropriate to post about this a month later during Pride Month (though the only reason I'm late is because of work!)

And I think that's what I most admire, people who are willing to speak truths that society would, for whatever reason, rather keep hidden, as he has done.

And that leads me to the book launch -->

"Pizza Before We Die" by Hassan Kanafani and Yasuko Thanh reveals the truth of living through the genocide that our governments want us to forget. Please do buy it and read it as the words will remind you of the horror in a way that even video cannot. I would never have gotten a chance to read it and write a blurb if I wasn't for my novel.

And there are others authors that I've been honoured to help as well -->

"In the Country I Love" by Alaa Al-Barkawi reveals truths about being a refugee, specifically Iraqi Shia refugees in the USA, through the story of two families caught up in tragedies caused by the intervention of the US abroad and the callousness of US society towards diversity at home.

It was because I met the author at the Muslim Literary Festival in Toronto that I had the opportunity to be on the street team promoting her book. -->

And "The Unravelling of Ou" by Hollay Ghadery reveals truths about the deep misogyny that permeates our communities and how they can be passed down from mother to daughter as inter-generational curses.

I don't think I'd ever have had the pleasure of reading it if I hadn't become a member of community of authors that Hollay is a pillar of. -->

I don't think I'm qualified to say whether my own novel reveals any truths. That's for readers to decide. But I certainly tried to show the diversity of thought within Muslims that is not only possible, but present through the story of a young woman in a society that is both Matriarchal and Muslim to push back against the dehumanizing idea that we are all the same. An Islamophobic idea that justifies so much violence against us.

But in any case I get to be a part of an amazing community and that is an amazing blessing and reward on its own.