Writing While Muslim: Women’s Experiences In Publishing

Writing While Muslim, centres the voices and experiences of authors, poets, translators, researchers and publishers who are often marginalised in these still very white professions.

If you already have a role in the publishing industry, want to, or are simply interested in how things work, please come along and listen to our speakers discuss their personal experiences of writing while Muslim. We want to shine a light on some of the brilliant creatives working right now, and to highlight and discuss where the industry fails and what we can do to improve it for writers and readers alike.

Our half day event includes discussion, workshops, and panels on ‘Writing While Muslim’ and ‘Geographies of the Self: who gets to write about landcape?’.  Speakers include: Noreen Masud, author of A Flat Place; N.S. Nuseibeh, author of Namsake, A. M. Dassu, author of Boy, Everywhere; and award winning translator Anam Zafar.

This event is open to everyone, you don’t have to be a Muslim or a woman to attend- but you do have to be respectful of both! Our speakers come from a range of backgrounds and relationships to and with faith, but all have connection to Islam and a love for books. There is no one experience of being a woman, or being a Muslim, and our aim is to open up space for nuanced discussion and sharing without the often regurgitated assumptions and narratives that can be placed on people from an outsider lens. We expect to see many Muslim friends, writers, colleagues from partner shops and publishers, regular Five Leaves event attendees and hopefully new faces too!

We’ll be holding Writing While Muslim at Nottingham Central Library, to allow more people to attend. The venue is wheelchair accessible, has accessible and gender neutral toilets, baby changing facilities, a children’s library and immersive room, and a cafe. There will be breaks between talks, a stall to buy books (as well as a chance to check out the library catalogue!), and opportunity to ask our wonderful speakers questions.

The full programme and running times will be published soon.