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Adam Al-Sirgany on His New Book & Why Arab Americans Must Write More · Obnoxiously Pleasant

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: Hey guys, we're back and we're not in my dining room.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_03: No, we're not.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_03: No, we're not.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's exciting though.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_03: I know we're not in the dining room.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_03: This is really fun.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_03: We have somebody new here today with us.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_03: Tell us where you're at.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, Adam.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_03: Why are you so surprised?
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't ready to.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_03: That was amazing.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_03: Adam, you've been sitting here with us for like 30 minutes.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_03: Clearly, this is Adam.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_03: I'll hand it over to him.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_03: Go ahead.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, I'm Adam Al Serganey, and I am the acquisitions and developmental editor for the independent press SFWP.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I am also the author of More Hell, which is coming out on August 19th with Whiskey Tip Books.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I uh teach developmental editing for the UCLA Extension uh writing certificate program in uh writing, editing, and publishing.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_03: That's amazing.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_03: And it's not, it's Edem Estrgeni with a gimm, in case you guys were wondering.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: Are you just trying to point out that he's Egyptian American?
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: This is a win for you guys.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: You guys know I always say I love to do it for my people, all people.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: So, Adam, tell us more about uh how you like where you grew up, a little bit more about your life in America, because you know, this is an Arab American podcast.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: So if you can just, you know, describe a little about your life.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so my father, uh Adil, he um he was born and raised in Cairo and um also traveled back and forth to Saudi, right?
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like uh, you know, back in the day, uh absent uh you know, regular banks.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um my family's jewelers, you know, so they would come and they would yeah.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um they here's another one I'm going to say poorly, but uh they had a big jewelry store on Hanakalili.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it's still there, like you can see the signs, um, the big Sargeni jewelry signs are still up there.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: But uh in the 80s he came to the United States to try and uh start a New World Jewelry store.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um met a guy named uh Charlie Lickey, who owned a store in uh Madison, Wisconsin, and he then, you know, uh somehow ended up selling a ring to a friend of my mother's, and my mother grew up in this little town, Stockton, Illinois.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh about 2,000 people.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's the original home of Kraft cheese.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_03: That's amazing.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_03: That is amazing.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I I had this very odd raising, right?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like uh Anima Kanim Sharibi, quaes yani.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh lacking.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_03: Good for you, man.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_03: Good for you.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, you know, I learned to pray.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: We go to the mosque in in Rockford, um, but we also like grew up on a hog farm.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: So very, very big contrast.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um I always wonder how like brown people end up in these small places of America.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_03: I really do.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_03: I really because my family ended up in like New York City.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_03: And then they moved to Maryland.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_03: Typical.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_03: And then so I always wonder, like, how does somebody we said Stockton?
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_03: How does somebody like Stockton?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_03: How does that happen?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh, real accidents, I think, mostly.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like, he my dad was very much a vagabond.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: He couldn't stay in one place, you know.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: But how how was it?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like, like how was it for you growing up, especially like after 9-11?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I mean, can you talk about uh about that a little bit?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so this was really weird.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: My dad, when he um when he came, he you know, he traveled around, he he and his brother Aladdin, they like they for a while they had a jewelry store.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_03: Your brother's name is Aladdin?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_03: Can you just put the mic up here?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because I worry about that.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_03: Totally.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_03: Let's go back to this.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_03: Your uncle's name is Allah Idin.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_03: I love that.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, all right, continue.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: They had a they had a jewelry store in the Virgin Islands, they were traveling back and forth a lot.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_03: Um I feel like there's a lot of wrong stuff happening there.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of wrong stuff.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_03: There's like there's like set something, there's something your dad didn't tell you, like for sure.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: So much.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: I um I yes, a lot of a lot of things going on there.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: But um they, you know, there was a there was a family in that town of Russian people uh named Sergei.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so like most people thought I was part of this family of Sergeys, but my father, you know, after 9-11 got very he got much more religious after that.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was kind of a reflexive um response.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: But I also, you know, I have some relatives who moved to New York and that really troubled him for a while.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: But he was also working at Zales at that point, you know, and he um uh he quit Zales and he moved back to the Middle East uh and kind of darkly got into this job that was selling off-brand rascal scooters.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: This company had thought, like, well, hey, there's going to be all of these like people who suddenly can't walk.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: And um and so he tried.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: This is that's crazy.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I left a lot.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um so yeah, I mean it was a very weird space, right?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like a lot of the people that I went to high school with, you know, we had very frequent army recruiters come in.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: One of my best friends um in high school ended up uh dying all over in Afghanistan.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_03: That's terrible.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_03: I'm so sorry.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it's always you know, it's always been this very like weird thing where you like um, you know, having having a discussion uh about being Arab American or in that space or even like bringing it up is always a little like you know, like touchy.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know what I mean?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it can't.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: I feel you.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um sorry, did you want to add anything else?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: No, I didn't know.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_03: I do have I do have one one like on that note on question for you, right?
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: So when when just to give you guys some perspective, um Edam reached out to us over email, right?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_03: And I went and I looked him up, and then I told him that this morning.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, you looked exactly like what I thought you would look like when he said he was an author, like the hair, the glass, the mustache, everything, right?
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_03: The picture on Instagram though, you only had a mustache.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, this is exactly when I think author, that's exactly what I look like.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_03: But I'm interested to know, like, one, how did you find us?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, two, how did you start writing?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_03: And you don't have to answer in any which, you know, like order, but like I'm really interested to find out like what pushed you to start writing.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_03: So we can talk about that first, and then like, you know, it's funny because you just said something which made me think of this question, like talking about being Arab American super touchy, but we're like two very Arab American ass people.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_03: Like we are.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, we are.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, but but uh no, I I started writing, like I said, I grew up on a farm, I was five miles outside of a town of 2,000 people, so there's always like a lot of like, you know, downtime.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and so I did a lot of reading as a kid, and I was always really excited about that.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, you know, in the in the rural Midwest, people play cards at night, you know.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: In the winter, there's not a lot to do, and they they bullshit, right?
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like they tell stories.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: And uh my my grandfather was a great storyteller, and I think that was just a a thing that I wanted to learn to do in this much more formal way.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I would, you know, I would sit around and I would draw little like comic books when I was a kid and and that kind of stuff.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: I've just always loved narrative.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I think I also, you know, between my father, well, there's a lot of gaps in in his story, and now that he's passed away, I'm never going to get all of the answers, you know.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a it's an Arab American family.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: He had seven brothers and sisters, and they have 14 different narratives uh about the same thing between them.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's very very Arab.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, very Arab.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: So um yeah, I think some of that was also about me figuring out how to process experiences and how to how to think things through and how to put them together in an order that made sense to me.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um this is a a kind of jump in logic, but the way I found you is my partner had actually, uh Lauren had actually um just I think she's been trying to get in touch with like what that that history and experience and culture is for me.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like I moved to Cairo for a little while uh in my mid-20s.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: I like um, you know, I I spent a lot of time in Tucson where I went to grad school and there's a big American community there.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of my Saudi family is there.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: And you have Saudi family too?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_03: Man, look at your the elusive Mr.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_03: World Ride.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um but yeah, so I um I think she's been trying to get in touch with some of that, and she she came across your podcast and immediately connected with it.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that makes me so happy.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I really enjoyed kind of doing that, and she's always coming up with like, hey, this is a thing that I I like the she's very excited about the uh eat and food episodes, you know?
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: Talking a lot about that, yeah.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so do you want to tell us um about your work with SFWWP?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: Am I getting it right?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Santa Fe?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: Santa Fe Writers.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, yes.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: Can you tell us more about that?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: And and then after that, if you can tell us about your book that you're you're yeah, because we have some of the books here, but none of these are Ed of the book.
• 9:11
  unknown: Okay.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: We'll post the link.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: We'll post the link.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: We'll also give you guys uh a screenshot of it, and then we'll tell you where you can buy it.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: But please tell us more about um SFWP and also the book.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so SFWP, we're in independent press.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we're now in our 28th year.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: Oh wow.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, which in small press terms is something like seven life sentences.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, uh it's not uh it's not a high margin business.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's also like, you know, without some of those larger backings, is always like, you know, it's a real feast or famine business.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so a lot of small presses aren't around.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: So Andrew Gifford, who founded uh the press and lives here in Bethesda, um, you know, has been doing it for a long time and uh took me under his wing.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_03: That's amazing.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: And he so I This is the Andrew we're talking about?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's the Andrew we're talking about.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_03: That's amazing.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't know that.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um we met Andrew.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_03: We met Andrew, he's like over there in the corner watching us like you know, like like a proud dad.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um not to age Andrew, I'm sorry.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't know how old Andrew is, but I don't know how old he just had his 49th birthday again.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_03: Oh that again.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, sorry.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna stick with my dad comment then.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um but no, I'm an acquisitions and developmental editor, which means that when books come into the press, I review them.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: And uh we do about eight to ten books a year, so a fairly small number.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we get somewhere around 2,000 submissions per year.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, I'm sorry, I'm gonna interrupt you for a minute.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I love to read, and like when I was younger, I thought this would be the dream job to just read books.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: But do you get some books where you're like, I can't even like finish this?
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's so bad.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yes.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: That would be my concern.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, oh my god.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, okay.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: So is it is it as fun as I thought it would be, or is it kind of sometimes like really bad?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: For me, it's fun.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think like I don't have to read every book end to end, right?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like when you get uh a kind of like You're like me when I watch a show.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, exactly.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: Because I like don't be like Hannah when she watched it.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_03: I never watch a show in full.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like just like fast forward.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_03: Nobody needs this moment.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_03: I know what's gonna happen they're gonna hug each other.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_03: They're gonna make it like just as fast for it.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_03: Keep it keep it going.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: No, but because we don't we don't have the capacity to do 2,000 books a year, right?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like you just have to uh figure out those moments when this book isn't gonna work for us.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: Or like I'd I'd rather say I'm not the best person to foster this book into the world.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um it may be that all of those books are deserving to be in the world.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's just I'm I'm not the best editor for it.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so, you know, once we pick a book, uh we'll discuss whether or not we we want to approach it, how we want to approach it, who the audience is for it.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I develop mentally edit, which means that I will um work on the sort of large scale.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: How does this narrative work?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: Do we need this character?
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: Could this section be shorter?
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, awesome.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: So that helps.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so before you continue, because I I know I guess already half asleep.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just kidding.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_03: Not because of your work, because I cannot imagine.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_03: I I'd love to do something.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_03: Really?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: I should just get paid to read books.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my god, that's great.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_03: You know, okay, so I want to read things that like I don't know if I can just read whatever.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_03: Like that's I like to read, but just not anything.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_03: And so I I think that would I would die a slow and painful death.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I'm sorry.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted, I wanted to like I want you to answer the question about your book in particular.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: But before we get before we get there, I just want to tell the uh the viewers and the listeners that you mentioned something to us while we were uh corresponding with you about how to if you're like Arab Americans and how you don't see a lot of submissions.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: Now I want to I'll come back to that question after you tell us more about your book because I think that's really important for for Arab American writers who are wanting to publish a book.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_02: We need to, this is something really like I want to highlight.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: But first, tell us about your book, what it's called, and just explain a little bit more about it.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so Morehell is a short story collection.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, most of those pieces take place in the rural Midwest.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it operates uh, I would say very much like uh a kind of classic Midwestern book, Winesburg, Ohio, where it's following different people within a shared community.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's mostly dealing with uh relationships and loneliness.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: But I think I like to think that it's also funny uh at times.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: So um yeah, I it's primarily not well, it's not primarily about being Arab American.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: There's some there's some little Easter eggs for those folks who know me.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um but um yeah, so it's 15 stories.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay, so short story.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not one whole okay, that's great.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I can't wait to get to get a copy.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_03: Guys, I feel like I forget, I'm sorry.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_03: This is like my like ADD is so bad right now because there's four million things happening.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_03: And I feel like a cat.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_03: I keep looking in every direction, and there's people doing stuff here and people coming in the door.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_03: If you hear background noise, it's because we're literally, they're literally setting up for this is like the book launch event, right?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: So spring book launch event.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_03: So if you see me doing this a lot, this episode, I apologize.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_03: I'm actually paying attention to the show.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_03: So when is the book getting released?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so the book is coming out on August 19th.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, that's amazing.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, awesome.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: And then um, so can you talk more about um uh how you you you mentioned to us uh when we were talking to each other before this episode that you don't receive a lot of Arab American submissions.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: And if you can just tell us more about that and what Arab American writers need to do in order to get their books published.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um so Arab American writers need to submit their work more and be out there and in discussing their work more, right?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um and some of that has to do with the fact that uh we're a relatively small proportion of the population.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but also we're we're fairly underrepresented in uh arts education.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: So most of the books that SFWP will get are former Master of Fine Arts students.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so some of that is that knowing about small presses in particular is a barrier in and of itself.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um some of that is about um the fact that because there aren't a lot of Arab Americans working in editing, working in uh publishing, working in, you know, as uh literary agents, there aren't that many Arab American books getting picked up into larger presses, the big five, you know.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um either.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I'm always looking for for great Arab American books.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: I I was telling you.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_03: So when you say looking, is it just like are you looking like through your submissions or are you actually going out to seek when like what does looking actually mean when you're looking?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, a little bit of both.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um so when I do um book fairs, I'm I'm often sort of like you know, hunting hunting down anyone in a hijab.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, that's very specific.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_03: You know, they might not be Arab.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, just I don't know.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_04: Totally.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_03: They might just be Muslim, okay, but from like Indonesia.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_02: They don't speak Arab.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I think he's looking for the diversity.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes, absolutely.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I see I see you there.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: Helped you out.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just I'm just I'm just ragging on him.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_03: It's okay, it's fine.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_03: We've known each other for like 45 minutes.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_03: We're best friends now.
• 16:34
  unknown: Yeah.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, there's also um there's a great organization, MISNA, that uh that helps support Arab American writers.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_03: I'd really encourage Can you tell me what is can we talk a little bit about that?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_03: For anybody that's like an aspiring writer or is a writer or somebody who is has a book and looking to get published and doesn't want to know about small press, this is for you.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_03: What is MISNA?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Mizna um is a nonprofit organization that um provides resources for Arab American writers.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um events on things like publishing, they do a film festival.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um like they also, you know, like have a an email list where they'll send out like this this press is open, this press is open, this place is like doing free submissions, right?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like during April, like this place is allowing free submissions for folks, that kind of stuff.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: So it has a lot a lot of resources for people.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: Let's make sure to include that link.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: We'll definitely put that in the in the description for sure.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think some of that's also um, I think Arab American folks and and writers in general, like learning about how the publication process works can be really crucial, right?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: Learning to write a good pitch, right?
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like really getting a good log line, you know, that kind of like that punchy, this is what my book is about on top, and really finding uh good comparable titles, right?
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh not like, you know, like going for, you know, a lot of people will send in things and they're like, I'm going to sell my book and it's going to be like Stephen King or something like that.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: You gotta be realistic.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then getting out there and being willing to to promote that book can really help us make a yes decision for folks, you know?
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um the like that that willingness to promote changes the changes the game.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_03: So like what would you so you cause you said something really important right now.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_03: So like what so if I'm somebody who's looking to sub to do a submission, right?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_03: Like what is something besides like that punchy injury that you're talking about, what is something that like a book that you've because these books sitting on the table, these are books that you've edited, right?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_03: Like this one's in process.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_03: This is these two are um these are already published.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_03: These are already published.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_03: So how do I how do I stand out?
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_03: Like what makes it?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_03: Is it my is it my story?
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_03: Is it my punch?
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_03: Like, how do I, you know, make sure that when I make the submission that you're gonna read my book?
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, be you.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, so original.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's true.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_03: I mean I'm not getting it.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: I think the authenticity of of a story is is what grabs people's attention, I think.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think authenticity is absolutely the key there.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of authors are gonna go online, they're going to look at like WikiHow or whatever, they're gonna like get Chat GPT to like lay out a kind of formal thing.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: And there's, you know, like they also sometimes just miss the basics, right?
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like they've got a a five-page bio of everything they've ever done in their lives, but they tell me nothing about their story.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think also like really refining the early pages, right?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like most editors in in my position or uh, you know, in the big five, they're gonna be looking at so many books, right?
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like that I can't have a Hanan moment and like be skipping through, right?
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_03: Like there's I love that you just give it right back.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_03: Uh-huh.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_03: You can't have a Hanan moment.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_03: No, you can't have a Hanan moment.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I think those especially with those early pages, right?
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like really capturing your audience off the top.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: Grab the reader, yeah.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, which does not mean things blowing up immediately or someone dying and screaming immediately or you know, yeah, necessarily, right?
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's I think we get a lot of those books.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: And also like I think it helps to not have like to write the book and not have like, you know, many people will come in and like, here's a like 40-page preface, you know.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_03: Well, yeah, yeah.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: So grab, get the attention, yeah, and uh be authentic, yeah.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: To who you are.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, all right.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_02: But so you you definitely advise Arab Americans to try to submit more, right?
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yeah.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_03: You guys heard it here first.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_03: Everybody go look for Edamestergeni.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_03: Adam Al Sergani.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: SFWP.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_03: At SFW, yeah, go look at SFWP.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but go look at SFWP if you have a book and you're trying to get published.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_03: Not be self-published.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_02: So so I'm gonna go back to your book.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: So what uh it's 15 short stories, right?
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yeah.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: What's one story from there that you can talk to me about?
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: Like tell our audience or like a teaser, yeah.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, so one of my favorite stories um in there is called Gracie's Story.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: And Gracie recurs in a couple of the stories, but it's um it's from her perspective.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, she lives in a home for autistic folks.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um and she's talking about uh getting in what she describes as a domestic dispute with her boyfriend.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um but it's boyfriend the Mandanesh.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_03: Uh yeah.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_03: We don't do that.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_03: This is fiction.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_03: It's fiction.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh so Gracie is um she's actually the one who hit him, and it's a kind of uh long form.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: Is Gracie Egyptian?
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh she's not.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: She's not Egyptian.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: No offense.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, totally.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: But Yeah, it's kind of a uh comedic story about love and and difficulty, and like it's it's told as an over-literalization of the idea of having a glass house where she's imagining people watching her have this this conflict.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so sorry, but like not to interrupt, but like the the the name of the title of your book, More Hell.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: Listen, the world is already hell now.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, seriously.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: That title, I know.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just like, damn, like I don't want more hell.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what's going on?
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: Can you can you tell us more why you came up with that title?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it actually comes from uh a labor organizer who's a farm labor organizer, Mary Yellen Lees.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um she didn't actually say it.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: She was sort of like uh she was bullied a little bit for being a woman and kind of put down for being a woman, but as a woman, right, like she she had the ability, even during farm seasons, to get out.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: She was very like vocal, very active um in helping uh Midwestern farmers uh have substantial pay and and not be as abused as they sometimes can be by the corporations that um work with them.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: She was uh fallaciously quoted as in a newspaper as saying, raise less corn and more hell.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um and when she was asked about that line, she said, I didn't actually say that, but it's a right good bit of advice.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: All right, all right.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: I like that.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_02: Now, did you want to tell us uh like off of the book?
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: We're not talking about the book now, but can you tell us more about uh what the similarities are between Arab Americans and people in rural America?
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_03: Somebody who has first hand experience.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I would say one big one is gonna be I my father is a jeweler, and size of jewelry uh is is a key one.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um just similar tastes, I guess.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like big chunky uh gems and costume jewelry big in the big in the Midwest, uh or they were when I was growing up, uh for sure.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um also I mean they can both be fairly conservative cultures, right?
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh my parents got along fairly well because, you know, like sexually in terms of drinking, like um, you know, in terms of sort of how they imagined uh raising a family as being a tight-knit unit, um they they connected on those levels, right?
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um church going, uh, you know, and and mosque going can be very similar to the very similar.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um so in that way, and you know, up until uh the second Bush administration, I think also like at least when I was growing up, there was a big um a lot of the Arab Americans I knew were were fairly conservative voters, right?
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like obviously that's changed a lot in the last few years.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: But I I think economically a lot of similar perspectives about like how to manage money, how to deal with money.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, and I I think that absent some of the other obvious cultural problems we've run into, that remains fairly true.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, all right.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: Helen, do you have any other questions?
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just I keep watching the guys.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_03: I am a freaking cat.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: This is so bad.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: Your ADHD is like really kicking in right now.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, like, you gotta tune it out.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_03: I know.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_03: I do, I'm doing I you know, I do my best.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_03: I feel a little judged today.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_03: I am doing my best.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_03: We're not in my dining room.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if you're doing your best.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_03: I'm doing my best.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_03: We're not in my dining room, we're outside, there's a lot happening, and um, I think this is like the first time ever that I came to anybody's like book lunch book launch event.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm just super excited.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: And you know what?
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: Like this, I gotta tell you.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: Like when she told me I'm gonna come pick you up at 9 30, I'm like, what?
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_02: We don't do this on a Sunday.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_03: So you should feel very, very like my Saturday.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: Like I tell my kids not to even join sports at the time.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: I woke up at 8.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: I don't wake up at 8 for work.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_02: That's true, dude.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_03: I'm always late to work, you know.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know about late, but like I like to do like what I what I refer to as cords.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_03: Core is like 10 to 3.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's when everybody is everybody's online and you know, what we're trying to say is this interview means a lot to us, and we really appreciate you speaking with us, taking the time.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I know you you're setting up here, so we don't want to go over we keep getting like some of these people looking at us and they're like, come on, come on, we gotta wrap this up because the summit starts at noon, right?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, but I have to ask him every time we interview someone, we have some quick questions.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for sure.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, for sure.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um chicken shawarma or beef shawarma?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Chicken.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: Chicken.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um tabula or fatush?
• 26:38
  unknown: Tabulah.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: Tabula, ooh, okay.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: No, I'm fatush.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_03: Uh tabula.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_03: 100%.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_03: I have a very important question for you.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, very important.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_03: Muluchea or koshari?
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: Muluchheia.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_03: Really?
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, no, I like it.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_03: I love it.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_03: I'm with you.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_03: Muluchea, 100%.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_03: This was awesome.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for having me.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: This is amazing.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, thank you.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_02: And we'll put all of this information in our description, and we'll also do um like clips and everything.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, just like we're guys are getting to see clips of like Adam doing his thing.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but we we need we need copies of those books.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: Please, please.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: All right, thank you.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for doing this.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: We'll see you guys next time.