Syrena in Space

*Debut author who has won numerous writing accolades, including the Critical Refugee Studies Collective Grant, the McGinnity Foundation Grant for Social Change, and the Woodrow Wilson Mellon-Mays Dissertation Fellowship *Pride month promotional tie-ins *Outreach to LGBTQIA+ writing communities and publications *Special outreach to queer Arab groups and queer Muslim groups, including Queer Crescent, the Queer Arabs podcast, Marginalized Majority, Arab American studies list serv, Critical Arab Junior Scholars, and RAWI (Radius of Arab American Writers) *Indie bookstore direct mailing focused on Southern indies *Outreach to LGBT+ supportive bookstores *Book club outreach to Charis Bookstore in Atlanta’s LQBTQ bookclub *Blurb outreach to Randa Jarrar, Naomi Shihab Nye, Safia El Hillo, Warsan Shire, Hayan Charrara, Jess Rizkallah *Mass galley mailing to trade publications and national newspapers *Advertising Budget Available *Co-op Budget Available *National awards push *Egalleys available on Edelweiss

Winner of the Dzanc Diverse Voices Prize LA SYRENA. For me home is in the water. When I go to the sea I want to swim forever and never look back. But I know I would die and the earth needs me on shore. My home is Syria and Syria for me is like the sea. I want nothing more than to jump in and swim around forever. In Syria I am declared wanted, like so many of us displaced lunar divas. The longing I feel is the deepest kind. It could crack the whole earth open. I am a Lumerian from Ancient Sumeria, a southern space creature in a northern world, LA SYRNENA, zhe is my destiny. In this collection, each poem flows like water on the page. The author weaves in stories و mantras و revolutionary messages و the movement of arabic letters و the memory of Sumerian cuneiform. This book is a hybrid creature between poem-story-form that crosses genres like it crosses dimensions. In this work, you are the mermaid. You are the forever migrant, a traveler between the oceanic and the extraterrestrial, across continents and planets. You are a time traveler, and you speak many languages. You are LA SYRENA, conjuring your own space to feel free.