Kathryn Mockler's Blog

Ours are stories about Iran that will not be found in Western media...

Excerpt from For the Sun After Long Nights IntroductionText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFor the imprisoned elites For feeling at easeFor the sun after a long nightFor all the nerves and insomnia pills For Woman, Life, FreedomFor Freedom For Freedom For Freedom—Shervin Hajipour, “Baraye”NILO AND FATEMEH

In September 16, 2022, a twenty-two-year-old Kurdish woman named Mahsa Jîna Amini was killed in Tehran by the city’s morality police. She was viciously beaten after having been detained by an officer who accused her of not dressing appropriately in public, in defiance of the country’s hijab rule, which broadly governs what women should wear. As this horrible incident was unraveling, details were quickly disseminated by a handful of local journalists on social media. Sajjad Khodakarami, an independent Iranian journalist based in Istanbul, broke the news of Jîna’s assault on Twitter, sharing that on September 13 she “was treated in Tehran’s Kasra Hospital due to severe injuries, including brain damage.”1 On the same day, Hamed Shafiei, a reporter who covered political and local news for Shargh, one of the largest and most prominent Iranian newspapers, posted an Instagram story. He wrote, “I went to Kasra Hospital. The atmosphere was tense there, and people were shouting, ‘They killed someone’s daughter. The police killed her. The morality police killed her.’ ” The accompanying image of Jîna lying unconscious in a hospital bed, with a swollen face, tubes coming out of her mouth, and dried blood on her ears, went viral.

As these threads of reporting began to come together, the regime tried to shut down coverage of the story. A police spokesperson told reporters at Shargh to disregard the incident with Jîna—that publishing what was happening at the hospital would only cause trouble for Shargh and for the police. But the regime couldn’t stop what was already in motion. The news continued to be shared all over various platforms, both by media outlets and by individual reporters. And when Jîna succumbed to her injuries on September 16, the Shargh reporter Niloofar Hamedi defied orders to keep quiet and told the world about her death in a tweet. Alongside a photo of Jîna’s grandmother and father wrapped in a tight, tearful embrace outside the closed door of the ICU, Niloofar wrote that “the black dress of mourning has become our national flag.” The Islamic Republic stood firm in its claim that Jîna had died due to a health issue, denying that the morality police had beaten her to death. But Iranians knew better, and the Friday after Jîna’s death swarms of people, mostly women, congregated in front of Kasra Hospital, overflowing with rage about seeing another one of our young women disposed of by the security state with such casual cruelty.

Morality police vans, plainclothes officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and riot police surrounded the hospital to try to prevent people from mourning and demonstrating. Authorities started to violently arrest people, shooting at and beating them. Elaheh Khosravi was one of the first journalists on the scene. After the commotion made it impossible to stay at the hospital, she walked down Alvand Street to Argentina Square nearby. There, she witnessed and reported on an act of protest and mourning that became a symbol of the 2022 movement that followed Jîna’s death: a young woman, scissors in hand, cutting off her ponytail while shouting, “You [the regime] are forever dishonorable!” The image was reminiscent of “Daf,” a poem by Reza Baraheni, an Iranian poet:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedA woman was running on the rigid beachesShouted: God, God, God, why have you forgotten Tehran’s sky?

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For those of us in Iran who have lived through destruction, war, and turmoil, poetry and literature have always been our shelter. In some cultures, poetry is for the elite. Yet in Iran, it’s for the masses. Nearly every Iranian, regardless of economic status or educational level, knows the great Persian poets. Even those who cannot read can recite, from memory, a favorite verse written by Hafez or Rumi. Poetry has seeped its way into our being; it’s part of our very Iranianness. And it isn’t only delicate or whimsical. It is now and has always been political. It’s fitting, then, that the legacy of Jîna’s death and the movement it would inspire would unfurl in real time through revolutionary songs and poetic slogans chanted at demonstrations and recorded in protest graffiti that covered the walls and streets that the authorities took from our people. For centuries, narrative expression has shaped how we bring life to the most urgent issues for our people. One of the earliest poetic works that collectively shaped us is the Shahnameh, an epic poem by the Persian poet Ferdowsi. In AD 977, Ferdowsi began writing a story in more than fifty thousand rhyming couplets about the mythical tales of ancient Iran. He takes the reader on a journey from the creation of the world to the seventh century, when the Arabs conquered Iran and brought Islam to the Persian Empire. It took Ferdowsi more than forty-three years to complete this narrative, writing amid the Arab invasion that imposed a new language and religion on our people. Taking care to intentionally use Persian words, Ferdowsi preserved our language and history at a time when it could have been lost forever. Word by word, story by story, we have survived our oppressors by force, with narrative as our lifeline.

At the core of the slogans created and spread during the 2022 protests, the morphing of our ideas and desires into melodies and verse, is the simple human act of expression. We’ve been killed, imprisoned, and exiled when we dare ask for basic dignity. Expressing ourselves is how we resist repression; it’s how we’ve resisted since Shahnameh. In the days and weeks after Jîna’s death, Iranians logged on to Twitter by the thousands to explain why they were facing off against ruthless, violent authorities in the streets every day.

A then-twenty-five-year-old singer named Shervin Hajipour began gathering our hopes, stringing them together into a ballad called “Baraye,” meaning “For.” As the guitar comes in to form a sparse music bed, Shervin’s powerful and graceful voice echoes Iranians’ longings. Transformed into a vessel, he runs down the endless reasons that pushed people out of their homes and into the streets in daily protest:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFor dancing in the streetsFor our fear when kissing loved ones For my sister, your sister, our sisters For the changing of rotted minds.

Perhaps accidentally, or instinctually, Hajipour joined the centuries- long tradition of verse as political commentary that is a foundational pillar of our national identity. When he posted the song to his Instagram in the early days of the movement, it was viewed more than forty million times in less than two days. In Persian we have a phrase, “khak-e pay-e mardom,” which directly translates to “the dust beneath people’s feet.” It’s a phrase used to say, “I’m with the people.” Though the phrase has been co-opted by politicians like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a pro-regime former president, to ridicule and disparage protesters, it has since been reclaimed. In writing and sharing this song, Hajipour was not only the dust beneath our feet, standing with us firmly and completely, but also our voice, our eyes, our hearts.

Two days after Hajipour shared “Baraye” online, he was summoned by the police and questioned for “encouragement to protest,” later released on bail in October 2022. He was barred from leaving Iran and lived life in limbo for two years while awaiting sentencing. In a video uploaded to Instagram on July 30, 2024, he finally informed his followers that he was ordered to turn himself in to begin serving a three-year-and-eight-month sentence for the lyrics in “Baraye.” Though his travel ban had by then been lifted, Hajipour said in the video that he would serve his sentence rather than leave Iran

“For me it’s a question of how else was I supposed to protest? How else could I have critiqued what was going on?” he said, speaking directly to the camera, his voice lightly trembling. “Was there a more peaceful, civil way other than ‘Baraye’?”

Even the most beautiful, nonviolent means of expression are unsafe in Iran. Songs, reporting, and the strengthening of community under unlikely circumstances threaten the regime’s existence. For each Hajipour who is silenced, new words, verses, and slogans will rise, finding their ways into our bodies as we shout them into existence at a protest or write them online to live forever.

This book is, for us, our own form of self-expression. If reporters are creating the first rough draft of history by bearing witness, then it only makes sense that the story of the women-led protest movement in Iran be told by two Iranian woman journalists. Our voices and journalistic work will tell the story of Iran from the ground through Fatemeh. And like many Iranians who have left or been forced to leave, Nilo will take readers through the uncomfortable upheaval of migration and what it means to reluctantly exile oneself in order to cover an uprising. Together, we represent two perspectives combining out of necessity.

Ours are stories about Iran that will not be found in Western media, the focus of which is always tied to geopolitical issues, the extraction of our natural resources, or whisperings of a looming World War III.

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At times, we will write separately in our own words. Our narratives combine when we meet each other and realize that we have to stitch our perspectives together to tell the full story of Zan, Zendegi, Azadi— Woman, Life, Freedom—the rallying cry and name of the 2022 protest movement. We bring these firsthand accounts to you to be the voice of our sisters. It is our life’s mission now to tell these stories; to watch from afar and up close; to report and write. We have suffered from survivor’s guilt, but we now realize that we are not merely survivors or estranged from our land. We are messengers.

Iranian women’s fight for liberation is neither new nor completed. Women have long been rallying together to oppose oppression and injustice, and we will tell the story of those historical and recent efforts here. We have made great strides so far. We have made it impossible for the Islamic Republic to implement its desire to cover our heads and our true selves, refusing to follow its draconian laws. We have shown that the people of Iran can expand beyond the confines of the Islamic Republic and its regime. This ongoing movement represents us, our power, our solidarity and sisterhood, a people and a nation that demand everyday life, justice, peace, hope, and an existence free from honor killings, the death penalty, and executions. We, Iranian women, are not the Islamic Republic’s enemy; we are its negation. In the words of Ahmad Shamlou, the contemporary poet,

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedIdiot men,I am not your enemy I deny your existence.

This resistance has not come without consequence. Two months before the movement took hold of Iran after Jîna’s death, a pro-regime woman wearing a conservative black veil confronted a young art student and poet named Sepideh Rashnu on a public bus for not wearing a hijab. In support of Sepideh, people kicked the woman off the bus. Sepideh recorded the incident on her cell phone and sent it to the media. It went viral, and in less than twenty-four hours Sepideh was arrested by security forces. They beat her and forced her to do a televised confession on the Islamic Republic’s state broadcaster with her bruised face in full, painful view. She was imprisoned for three and a half years for the crime of not wearing a hijab. Sepideh is our Rosa Parks, rebelling against Iran’s gender-based apartheid. We begin and end our book with her words and those of other imprisoned sisters in Iran to show that the regime cannot lock up their bright minds and free souls:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedA person who fights knows that revolutions will take a long time, but she does not fail. Standing for freedom is more beautiful than freedom itself. The person who fights is yesterday’s child. She knows that if she doesn’t taste freedom, today’s children will. A person who fights knows that revolutions will last, but she will not fail Excerpted from For the Sun After Long Nights: The Story of Iran’s Women-led Uprising by Fatemeh Jamalpour and Nilo Tabrizy. Reprinted by permission of Pantheon Books, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2025 by Fatemeh Jamalpour and Nilo Tabrizy.

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Nilo Tabrizy is an investigative reporter at The Washington Post. She works for the Visual Forensics team, where she covers Iran using open-source methods. Previously, she was as a video journalist at The New York Times, covering Iran, race and policing, abortion access and more. She is an Emmy nominee and the 2022 winner of the Front Page Award for Online Investigative Reporting. Nilo received her M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University and her B.A. in Political Science and French from the University of British Columbia.Fatemeh Jamalpour is a feminist journalist banned from working in Iran by the Ministry of Intelligence. Jamalpour has worked as a freelance reporter for outlets such as The Sunday Times, The Paris Review and the Los Angeles Times, and has also held positions at BBC World News in London and Shargh newspaper in Tehran. She has two master’s degrees in journalism and communication from Northwestern University and Allameh Tabatabaei University in Tehran and was a 2024-25 Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan. Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published For the Sun After Long Nights: The Story of Iran’s Women-led Uprising by Fatemeh Jamalpour and Nilo TabrizyPenguin Random House, 2025

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Publisher’s Description

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • A moving exploration of the 2022 women-led protests in Iran, as told through the interwoven stories of two Iranian journalists

In September 2022, a young Kurdish woman, Mahsa Jîna Amini, died after being beaten by police officers who arrested her for not adhering to the Islamic Republic’s dress code. Her death galvanized thousands of Iranians—mostly women—who took to the streets in one of the country’s largest uprisings in decades: the Woman, Life, Freedom movement.

Despite the threat of imprisonment or death for her work as a journalist covering political unrest, state repression, and grassroots activism in Iran—which has led to multiple interrogation sessions and arrests—Fatemeh Jamalpour joined the throngs of people fighting to topple Iran’s religious extremist regime. And across the globe, Nilo Tabrizy, who emigrated from Iran with her family as a child, covered the protests and state violence, knowing that spotlighting the women on the front lines and the systemic injustice of the Iranian government meant she would not be able to safely return to Iran in the future.

Though they had met only once in person, Nilo and Fatemeh corresponded constantly, often through encrypted platforms to protect Fatemeh. As the protests continued to unfold, the sense of sisterhood they shared led them to embark on an effort to document the spirit and legacy of the movement, and the history, geopolitics, and influences that led to this point. At once deeply personal and assiduously reported, For the Sun After Long Nights offers two perspectives on what it means to cover the stories that are closest to one’s heart—both in the forefront and from afar.

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1Mahsa Amini’s Kurdish name is Jîna, which means “life” in the Kurdish language. The Iranian state legally recognizes names of Persian or Islamic origin, meaning that many members of ethnic minority communities must have a name in their local language preceded by a state-recognized name. To honor her name and her heritage and to respect how her friends and family refer to her, we will do the same by calling her Jîna throughout this book. Jiyan Zandi, “Why It’s Vital to Center Kurdish Voices in the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ Movement,” Time, Nov. 23, 2022.

I wish we were all born free

One of these days we’ll both be fine

Today I didn’t talk to my mother. I hate to admit it because it causes me so much guilt, but for other caregivers I want to be honest.

Sometimes, you just have to take a break.

Since my mother has been moved to a more dementia-focused unit at Victoria Hospital, they put mine and my sister’s number on the wall, so she can call us. Because she has no idea when we last spoke, she will call each of us upwards of 30 times a day in between caregiver visits. My sister and I take turns fielding the calls.

But today I just could not answer the phone. I know she is safe (she’s in the hospital) and caregivers will be coming to attend to her, but I just could not talk to her. So I didn’t answer any of the calls. I hit a wall, and my sister took over for today.

What I wanted to do and did was go to the rally for Gaza.

*

As I walked to the BC Legislature for the @coastsalish2palestine rally and silent march for Palestine today, I found a few signs along the way that gave me hope. A peace sign drawn into the sidewalk concrete. A city box and bus stop shelter graffitied “ALL EYES ON GLOBAL SUMUD FLOATILLA! FREE PALESTINE!”

When in a march, I like walking towards the edge and giving the peace sign to passersby on the sidewalk in this very touristy part of the city.

Today many returned the gesture or waved or nodded in support or smiled or clapped. Some took out their phones to record. Some had tears in their eyes.

A woman and her child stood at a street light watching us. She made a peace sign and then he did.

When these strangers acknowledge me and I them, I feel a little tug like there’s an invisible string connecting us.

A senior wearing a rain hat yelled out from the sidewalk “born free” over and over as we passed.

I wish we all were.

Many know the truth that our governments want us to ignore: we’re complicit in this genocide. A horrible horrible evil fact of life. Israel commits genocide with the support of the US, Canada, and many western nations.

I usually go by myself to these things, and it’s such a nice feeling to be in the presence of others with whom you share values.

I forgot to eat properly and got a little faint. The group even had food out, so I took an apple, keenly, painfully aware of the privilege.

Free Palestine. Free us all.

Most know the truth that our governments want us to ignore: we’re complicit in this genocide. A horrible horrible evil fact of life. Israel commits genocide with the support of the US, Canada, and many western nations.

I usually go by myself to these things, and it’s such a nice feeling to be in the presence of others with whom you share values.

I forgot to eat properly and felt a little faint. The group even had food out, so I took an apple keenly, painfully aware of the privilege.

Free Palestine. Free us all.

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The Way We Were

One of these days we’ll both be fine The Way We Were

I‘m playing songs for my mom on the phone while she is in the hospital across the country.

I put on “Memories: The Way We Were” by Barbara Streisand.

My mother says in shock, “Kathryn, you have a BEAUTIFUL voice!

“Mom, this is Barbara Streisand. I’m actually tone deaf.”

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October 4, 2025Send your love to Send My Love to Anyone!

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Are you happy?

One of these days we’ll both be fine “Happy” by Kathryn MocklerAre you happy?

—Kathryn, are you happy?

—What?

—Are you happy?

—Mom, why did you ask if I was happy?

—Well, to hear that you are.

—What if I’m not?

—I think I would have heard.

—From who?

—You.

Sept 27, 2025Send your love to Send My Love to Anyone!

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Wish for Palestine

Wish for Palestine

A wish for the people of Palestine. A short hand drawn animated film. Drawings by visual artist and poet Jessica Joy Hiemstra.

Music by Ahmed Abu Amsha and Julie Semoroz.

The music was created live, while Ahmed Muin and Julie Semeroz harmonized with drones.

Ahmed wrote these words to Julie:

“In the heart of the storm, beneath the roar of the drones, your voice rose gently over mine. You weren’t just singing - you were healing an open wound with melody. Together, we turned the pain of war into a song of life. We made hope sing from the ashes. Thank you from the depths of my soul. You gave me a moment of peace when the world offered none.”

A note from Jessica to her friends in Palestine

May your enemies learn to love your children. May the boats reach your shore. Every child matters. Love only. Free Palestine. This film is dedicated to Meera Waleed. She’s an artist, like me. She, and her family, are in danger. I want to make art with her one day. Her father helped with the Arabic translation in the film (thank you, Waleed!). This film is also for you, whoever and wherever you are. Maybe you will see your own heart in it, whether you are in Gaza trying to protect your child, or you are my neighbour in Gunning Cove, Mi’kma’ki.

Help Waleed Family Rebuild Their Life

Help Ahmed Muin & Gaza bird's band

Creators

Songs From the Rubble

Julie Semoroz

Jessica Hiemstra

From the making of the film:

ahmedmuin_abuamsha A post shared by @ahmedmuin_abuamshaPrint Sale & Fundraiser

Jessica Hiemstra has three prints for sale to raise money for her artist friend Meera Waleed in Palestine. 100% of profit goes to Meera Waleed.

Wish for Palestine - Poppies by Jessica Joy Hiemstra Wish for Palestine - STOP by Jessica Joy Hiemstra Wish for Palestine - Holding hands by Jessica Joy HiemstraPrints 5×7 Original Fine Art Print on Hahnemuehle German Etching Paper 310gsm. All prints are matted in black and fit 8 × 10 standard frames.

writes about “Wish for Palestine”:

Queer Feminist TragicomedyWish for PalestineJessica Hiemstra, who created the artwork for my We Were Here project, has now made a beautiful animated short called Wish for Palestine…Read morea month ago · 1 like · Mary Fairhurst BreenSend your love to Send My Love to Anyone!

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I can see now, a child coming to understand existence through the experience of suddenly not existing.

I’ve been meaning to ask you is an interview series where Kathryn Mockler invites people to answer questions on being human Kathryn Mockler: What is your first memory of existing

Shani Mootoo: This is a wonderful, provocative question for which I had to weigh several plausible answers. Could it have been when there was clapping and sounds of happiness and encouragement from a room full of doting adults when, at age three, I was asked to dance like I had seen done in the Bollywood movies? Or could it have been when I was seven, and an artist hired to do portraits of each child in my family, stared at me from the side of his canvas as he painted, disappeared behind the canvas, peered out and looked again, on repeat until his work was finally finished and I saw that he had captured my image as perfectly as if he had actually seen my heart? Could it have been when my mother, who seldom seemed to notice me, brought out my drawings and paintings without me knowing she would do this and showed them to the portrait painter? Could it have been when the portrait painter studied each sheet of paper I had worked on, put his hand on my head as he said to my mother, “So young; she shows real talent”, or when, before leaving our house, he presented me with several real canvasses, real tubes of oil paints, real artists’ brushes and a palette? As I weigh these, I think of one more time, and think the truest first recognition of notions of existence and nonexistence might have taken place when I was four years old. I was living then in Trinidad with two people I thought of as my parents. An odd thing happened; a man and a woman accompanied by two children younger than I, came to live with us. They were strangers to me, and to this day, I don’t believe I had known of their existence before their arrival. I would eventually learn that the people I had been living with in Trinidad were not my parents, but rather my grandparents who were taking care of me while my actual parents, these newly arrived adults, lived in Ireland so that my father could attend medical college there. The two children, I had to learn, were my siblings. The notion of existing, too complex for a child of four to understand fully, was, I do remember, deeply felt, known in the heart, when my doting grandmother split her attention between the three grandchildren; it was a shock to me to recognize that I was not the only one in her world. This would have been, I can see now, a child coming to understand existence through the experience of suddenly not existing.

KM: What is the best or worst dream you ever had?

SM: My best dream involved me flying, and I had it again and again, until I wrote of my main character Mala, in my first novel Cereus Blooms at Night, flying through her neighborhood at night. The dreams I used to have started with me, a young person in jeans and a t-shirt, finding myself in some kind of trouble from which I had to escape. There was no one who could or would help me, and no tools with which to fight. All I had was my weak little body. In desperation, I would lift my arms up above my head and pull the air back with them, hard. From the first of these dreams, I felt a hint of lightness and so, knowing that my life depended on me alone, I raised and pulled back, raised and pulled back, with only the force of a magical belief that I could do it, trying to swim-fly with the speed a hummingbird beats its wings. Flight was always achieved in these dreams, but only at the last second before attack. As the dreams recurred, I found myself working in them to perfect take-off and remaining in the air. Height was important, for If I didn’t achieve it fast enough, any part of my body or clothing could be lightly brushed by anyone, foe or friend, or thing, the leaf of a tree, a draft from the tunnel between houses, and the magic, the spell, would be broken; I would tumble ungracefully back to harm. From dream to dream, I perfected my technique. It was wise, I found, to take-off and land, as soon as possible, on a rooftop— not sloped, but flat—from where I could then begin the process of launching to greater heights again. For a good while, dangers on the ground remained, but once escape was perfected and I was able to take care of myself, those dangers evaporated all together, and I would come to know the pleasure of flight for itself. Launching no longer had anything to do with escape; it was all about the desire to see the world from above, and in these dreams I would go far and wide, and there came a time when, in the dreaming, I met others who flew, like me, for the love of it, and for love itself. It was when I put all I had learned from those dreams into the writing of Mala’s delightful flying episodes that mine came, very sadly, to an abrupt halt. I am happy to see this question here, to have the chance to remember this sequence of dreaming.

KM: What is your favourite or significant coincidence story to tell?

SM: An American-Canadian (A-C from here on) woman here in Canada got in touch with me and said she had a friend in the Caribbean, a friend who knew me, and that friend suggested she get in touch with me and we meet. The Caribbean woman was, indeed, once a friend, but I hadn’t been in touch with her in more than thirty years. That she was someone the A-C and I knew was not a coincidence, that was just life. Or, rather, it didn’t at the time seem like a coincidence. In any case, I didn’t respond with enthusiasm to the A-C, making no concrete plans to meet. But the A-C had a close friend here in Canada who, oddly, also suggested we should meet. This friend and I knew each other fairly well, as we were (are) both in the arts, had done a residency at Banff together, and were (are) both immigrants of colour, she from India, I from Trinidad. But, settled in my ways, I didn’t feel I needed or wanted to make new friends this late in life. My artist friend from India, however, invited the A-C and I and another woman to lunch with her in Little India. On meeting the A-C, I was certainly intrigued. She had what she called a bi-cultural life, one here, the other in the Caribbean. Well, so did I. While that was nothing more than a tiny coincidence, what an amazing thing it was to meet someone here, a bred-in-the-bone American turned Canadian, white and all that that might suggest, who knew that a mango wasn’t simply a mango, but that there is a large variety of mangoes, each with subtle but important differences. And she could actually describe those differences. She even had a tree of her own in the Caribbean. And the rest is fifteen year-old history. But those coincidences were slight, and they had, in fact, barely begun. In the courting days we realised that our artist friend who had managed to introduce us, had years before given the A-C a clipping from a cereus plant that I had given her—definitely a coincidence to make one shudder a little, if only with laughter. In the A-C’s house, imagine, she held and cared for something that once belonged to me. Then, more coincidences were realised and, in fact, began to pile up. I would learn that she had last had a relationship with a Mexican video artist, and she learned I had once lived in New York City with an American video artist. With a flash, we both realised that my then-partner (the NYC one) and her previous Mexico interest were the best of friends—a friendship beginning just when I was leaving NYC for good and, on reflection, had actually witnessed brewing. The A-C had known of me while she was in Mexico through by-the-way hearsay, but hadn’t paid attention to my name. It further turns out that she and the Mexican were in Toronto, at the Gladstone Hotel when a book launch was taking place in a room there. They walked by as the writer was reading to the audience. The A-C wanted to listen in, but the Mexican was eager to go out into the city. She didn’t catch the name of the writer or the book. But from the hallway outside she did get a glimpse of the writer and was curious. That was me, and the book was Valmiki’s Daughter. It would be three years after this that the A-C and I would end up at that lunch in Little India. More talk as time went by, and we realized that I had sat on a jury that gave her, years before, a grant for her work that I actually remembered in some detail almost a decade later. By the time of that first lunch meeting, she’d already read Valmiki’s Daughter, but it would take time getting to know the more mundane details of each others’ lives before it would dawn on us both that that was the book that was being read from, and I the person she’d glimpsed at the Gladstone. We’ve been together now for fifteen years and still such ages-old interconnectednesses, or coincidences if you prefer, surface. But enough, for now.

KM: Can you recount a time (that you’re willing to share) when you were embarrassed?

SM: It was at the Miami Book Fair, in their authors’ lounge where one was sure to share a sofa, table, coffee or meal, with a good number of internationally well-known public figures and writers. Overwhelmed by it all, too timid to hobnob myself, I stood back and watched amazed, nevertheless, that I was in the same room with so and so. Finally I spotted another Canadian writer, a man I knew from back home, from Canada. Our context here was disorienting, though—we were in Miami and around us were many people who I knew only from photos but hadn’t ever actually met and, as is the way with me, I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember his name. He was standing in a tight circle of men, chatting. It was not like me to break in to say hello, especially as I didn’t know him well enough to do so, and all we really had in common was that we were both Canadian writers in a foreign land. If only I could remember his name. If I did, I could muster the courage to pass by and just say a quick and performatively confident hello, using his name, and walk on. In any case, the circle was just too tight, five tall men, clearly old buddies, for me to have tried this. I would embarrass myself, I was sure, and didn’t want to do so, particularly in such a setting. And yet, he turned slightly and looked directly at me. Directly. And he smiled broadly. I was so happy. He recognized me, too. When the circle broke up, he went on his own to sit on one of those comfy chairs off to the side, and I, having got myself a plate of food, made my way over and sat opposite him. We began to speak, small talk, a kind of relief for us both. Finally, I admitted to not remembering his name. He said, Oh, have we met before? A bit taken aback, I said, I’m sure we have, probably at one of the festivals back home. Where is back home, he asked. I shuddered a touch now and asked, Canada? He grinned and was about to speak, when a woman passing by said out loud, “This happens to him all the time! Everyone thinks they know him.” I quickly asked who he was. Jeffrey Brown, the woman answered as she disappeared down the path behind me, laughing—either at the phenomenon of this kind of thing constantly happening to this person, or perhaps at me. Of course, the moment I heard his name, I realised who he was, the Chief Arts Correspondent for the PBS NewsHour and who I watched almost nightly in my living room back home. My ears and face burned, as I tried to remember all we had been talking about, what I had said that might have made no sense to him, and then, to my great relief someone who actually knew him came and greeted him with the genuine warmth of familiarity. I’m not sure he saw when I got up with my still-full plate and slipped away. Books later, I would often imagine getting in touch with him, reminding him of our amicable meeting in the authors’ lounge at The Miami Book Fair and of our long and ropey conversation, suggesting I send my current book release to him to be featured on his section of the nightly PBS news. I’d fly to Boston to be interviewed, of course. But, in no time, I would recall that earlier twist of embarrassment, and bring the ever-growing fantasy to an end.

KM: What do you cherish most about this world?

SM: The things that are endangered. Blue sky, forests, trees—flora of all kinds, animals, birds, rivers, the oceans and life they support. I am fascinated by and cherish the benign workings of the earth making, unmaking and remaking itself, like volcanoes and earthquakes, glaciers and fjords, how mountain ranges are formed—in them fossil signatures of the time they were once subterranean.

KM: If you could send your love to anyone, who would it be and why?

SM: This is a somewhat confounding and complex question, because I can and do send love to the person to whom I would nevertheless send love, namely my friend Riwaa. The fact that I can and do, and yet still choose her in answer to this question, means that this love I send daily feels sorely limited and does not benefit her in the way I want it to, or that she needs it to. When the need to express and deliver love is urgent and dire, it can be too overwhelming for one person to bear. While my partner carries the brunt of it, I share the burden with her, feeling this love all the same. There is communication in my household with Riwaa by WhatsApp every day, at least once a day, except on the days when she can’t get an internet connection, when it has been, that is, cut. Communication with her these days is urgent love. Conversation between her and my partner—they have known each other for several years, a relationship that began with my partner becoming her writing mentor and evolving over the years into friendship—has swung from what make-up and girl-products are being used and why, to the cost of a bag of flour or an egg, to the question of if and when the border will open for her and her family to leave. Love used to be having the slightly taboo conversations with her about her hopes for marriage, about western girls and their boyfriends, and pop-culture. And between her and me love was communication that would range from questions about homosexuality to the exchange of recipes, her maqluba for my lentil cakes. Texts would end with emojis of people hugging and hearts throbbing, calls with copious I-love-yous, the words spoken into a piece of metal and plastic, carried almost a third around the world, meant with truly inexpressible intensity. After a particularly terrible period of food being difficult to find or buy, and the incessant and terrifying noise of drones 24/7 she actually said that she was tired of hearing how much everyone cares while she and her family watch her tent neighbours fall in death all around them. Love, the word having lost its active meaning now, comes in small amounts of money sent regularly, where, exchanged on the blackmarket, for every $100 sent she gets the equivalent of $40 that could buy only one bag of flour if available or a few eggs. It comes in understanding that we can no longer responsibly attempt to fill her with hopes of a ceasefire—the umpteenth one promised but not delivered, or that the border—baseless rumours of it’s opening cruelly floated again and again, will soon open and she and her family will cross and we will travel to Egypt to finally meet them in person and we will eat maqluba together. Now love comes with making sure to stay still when we hear her on the phone, her weak voice, having only been able to get a half cup of lentil soup a day for too-long now, say to my partner, “I’m dying”. Love comes in holding my partner’s hand as she shakes, but it comes fiercest in not contradicting Riwaa or attempting any longer to reassure her, for she has been reassured for too long, to no avail. Love comes with listening, not showing the truth of what we fear and what we feel. Love comes with keeping to ourselves our desires for her, our indignation and outrage that events seem to be moving in ways none of us wants. It is to Riwaa and her family that I send all kinds of love.

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Shani Mootoo was born in Ireland, raised in Trinidad, and has lived in Canada for more than forty years. She is the author of several novels, including her most recent Starry Starry Night, Polar Vortex, and Cereus Blooms at Night. A four-time nominee for the Giller Prize, her work has been long and shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the Lambda Literary Prize, and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, among others. Her poetry books include Oh Witness Dey!, Cane | Fire, and The Predicament of Or. She has been awarded the Doctor of Letters honoris causadegree from Western University, is a recipient of Lambda Literary’s James Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize, the Writers’ Trust Engel Findley Award, and The National Library’s Library and Archives Scholar Award. She lives in Southern Ontario, Canada. Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published Starry Starry Night by Shani MootooBook*hug Press, 2025

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Publisher’s Description

In Starry Starry Night, Shani Mootoo gives us the singular voice of Anju Goshal, a young girl living in 1960’s Trinidad. Spanning her life between the ages of four and twelve, we experience the world just as Anju does, coming to understand she has evolved into a keen observer because her safety depends on it. Through her clear-eyed perspective, the reader is fully transported and becomes both a witness to and participant in Anju’s negotiations of an unexpectedly new and complex life.

Starry Starry Night illuminates the experiences of a well-off and socially advancing family during the turn of a country’s fortunes. Thoughtfully articulated via the innocent commentary of a child, the book tackles larger issues of family, loss, and trauma. It relays the story of a British colony just before and after its independence and touches on the racial and class problems faced as a result of colonialism.

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Writing Very Short Narratives & My Adventures in Book Publicity

I’m excited to be offering two webinars for the Writers’ Guild of Alberta.

The first is on writing very short narratives and the other on book publicity and self-promotion!

Register here

The Writers’ Guild of Alberta is excited to offer two ticketed webinars this fall with celebrated author Kathryn Mockler.

Participants who purchase tickets will have access to both webinars.

Registration

Writers’ Guild Members: $25.00
Writers’ Guild of Alberta Student Members: $15.00
Non-Members: $35.00 *

* Membership can be purchased anytime and is valid for one year.

Webinar One – In a Flash: Writing Very Short Narratives

Saturday, October 18th, 2025
10:30 AM MT (Online)

Join Kathryn Mockler, author of Anecdotes for a workshop exploring the art of concise storytelling in a variety of styles, forms, and genres such as one-liners, fragments, monologues, micro horror, hermit crab forms, and flash memoir. We’ll read and discuss a selection of stories and try out some flash techniques in guided writing prompts. Suitable for all experience levels.

Webinar Two – My Adventures in Book Publicity

Saturday, November 15th, 2025
10:30 AM MT (Online)

Kathryn Mockler shares her publishing journey—both the thrills and heartaches of launching a book into the world. She offers strategies and tips to help participants create a self-promotion and book publicity plan that they can live with.

Register

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Send My Love to Anyone is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support this project, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Meatball

One of these days we’ll both be fine Photo by Jason Leung on UnsplashMeatball

Phone conversation.

—Hey, Mom, what are doing?

—I’m eating my dinner. Groaning. Ohhhhh, no!

—What?

—A meatball fell on the floor.

—The nurse is coming in ten minutes. She can pick it up.

—I’m going to pick it up.

—I don’t want you bending over. Please.

—Why?

—Because you might fall and hurt yourself. You’ve been falling lately. That’s why you’re in the hospital.

—I’m not going to hurt myself. There’s a meatball on the floor!

—The nurse will pick it up.

—Okay.

—Promise me.

—It’s a big mess.

—Mom, please don’t pick it up.

—Okay.

Grunting. Moving around.

—Mom, what are you doing?

—I’m trying to get this meatball off the floor!

—Mom, if you were a meatball would you like to be left alone or would you like to be picked up?

Indignant.

—I WOULD LIKE TO BE LEFT ALONE IF I WAS A MEATBALL!

—Then let’s leave the meatball. The meatball does not want to be picked up.

Groaning. Bed squeaking. Moving around.

—I just picked it up.

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Canadian Writers Condemn Israel’s Murder of 244 Palestinian Journalists

244 murdered journalists. 244 Canadian writers.

I added my name because silence is complicity.

Join us in standing with Palestinian truth-tellers. Boycott, sanction, and divest from the Israeli occupation state.

Since these signatures were collected, the number of Palestinian journalists murdered by Apartheid Israel has gone up from 244 to 270.

For more information visit coastsalish2palestine or follow Canadian Writers For Palestine on Instagram

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I wrote my latest book at least partly because I felt that we owe Gaza a debt we will never be able to repay.

I’ve been meaning to ask you is an interview series where Kathryn Mockler invites people to answer questions on being human Photo credit: Sarah KohlerKathryn Mockler: What is your first memory of existing?

Saeed Teebi: I am perhaps four years old. We are in London, UK, where we lived for a year. We are on our way home from my preschool. I am holding my mother’s hand, wearing a blue mackintosh. It is miserable: foggy, raining, and, without warning, nighttime. The wind is in our faces, heavy, heavy. I am struck by how immobile we are. I am exerting force to move my legs and torso forward, but it wasn’t working. We aren’t going anywhere. I panic. Will we ever progress?

KM: What is your first memory of being creative (writing, art making, etc.)?

ST: Dreaming up scenarios for how, actually, it was my brother who did it.

KM: What is the best or worst dream you ever had?

ST: With rare exceptions, I forget my dreams as soon as I wake up. They sometimes leave a trace of joy or anxiety, but it dissipates before I reach the bathroom. Maybe paradoxically, I am a good interpreter of the dreams of others.

KM: Do you have a preferred emotion to experience? What is it and why?

ST: Wouldn’t everyone prefer the most saccharine kind of emotion that gives us the most direct pleasure? Do we have to evince nuance and sophistication even in our innermost cravings for feeling?

KM: Can you recount a time (that you're willing to share) when you were embarrassed?

ST: I was maybe nineteen, trying to sound cool to a bookseller. “That book is the epitome of stupidity,” I said, pointing at something. He answered: “Did you mean the epitome of stupidity?” I will let you imagine how far apart we were on pronunciation, and for how many years I winced at this memory.

KM: What do you cherish most about this world?

ST: The scraps of connection to others that have survived with me, usually despite my best efforts.

KM: What would you like to change about this world?

ST: How cruelty has become both effortless and mundane.

KM: What advice would you give to your younger self? Your younger self could be you at any age.

ST: Live slower. The things you are so eager to reach will, in the vast majority, not feel as valuable when you reach them.

KM: If you could send your love to anyone, who would it be and why?

ST: To Gazans. And I admit that, of all that I want to send them, love would be the least of it.

KM: Tell SMLTA readers about your latest book.

ST: I wrote my latest book at least partly because I felt that we owe Gaza a debt we will never be able to repay. It is called You Will Not Kill Our Imagination: A Memoir of Palestine and Writing in Dark Times.

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Saeed Teebi is an award-winning writer and lawyer. His latest book is titled You Will Not Kill Our Imagination: A Memoir of Palestine and Writing in Dark Times, and is out in September 2025. His debut short story collection, Her First Palestinian, was a finalist for several awards, including the Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Prize. Born in Kuwait, Saeed resettled in the United States, then Canada. He lives in Toronto.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published You Will Not Kill Our Imagination by Saeed TeebiSimon & Schuster, 2025

Buy You Will Not Kill Our Imagination

Publisher’s Description

A vital, fearless memoir explores what it means to be a Palestinian in this moment, the effects of the genocide on Palestinian art and imagination, and that to even claim a belonging to the land from a country thousands of miles away is an act of subversion—a book that Omar El Akkad says “so perfectly contextualizes and humanizes so much of what has led us to this awful moment, and one that will be remembered long after.”

Imagination is a more powerful force than hope.

Acclaimed author Saeed Teebi was at work on his first novel when the attacks on Gaza began in late 2023. The violence and cruelty of the attacks, accompanied by the assent and silence of international governments, stunned many across the globe, like Teebi, into a new state of permanent horror.

What does it mean to be of the Palestinian diaspora in such a moment? What does it mean to be of a people who have sustained such a large-scale assault not only on their homeland, but their entire identity? What is the role of art, of language—of imagination—in asserting one’s identity, when that very assertion is read as an act of subversion?

In this incisive work, Teebi explores, with searing, razor-sharp prose, the effects of genocide on the bodies, minds, and imaginations—of Palestinians especially, and humanity in general.

This is at once a memoir of one family’s displacement, a scathing indictment of global complicity in the face of brutality, and a profound rumination on art and imagination as a means of defiance. It is an astonishing work of resistance by a major intellect, and it is both urgent and timeless.

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