Show Notes and Links to Huda Al-Marashi's Work
On Episode 26, Pete is honored to speak with Huda Al-Marashi, fellow Santa Clara Bronco alum and writer extraordinaire. They discuss, among other topics, the process of writing and publishing her novel, the writer's daily life, target audiences in writing, the "white gaze," and Huda's inspirations in life and in literature.
Huda Al-Marashi is the Iraqi-American author of First Comes Marriage: My Not-So-Typical American Love Story, a book the Washington Post called "a charming, funny, heartbreaking memoir of faith, family, and the journey to love. If Jane Austen had grown up as a first-gen daughter of Iraqi parents in the 1990s, she might have written this.”
Excerpts from this memoir have also been anthologized in Love Inshallah: The Secret Love Lives of Muslim American Women, Becoming: What Makes a Woman, and Beyond Belief: The Secret Lives of Women and Extreme Religion.
Her other writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, al Jazeera, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of a Cuyahoga County Creative Workforce Fellowship and an Aspen Summer Words Emerging Writer Fellowship. First Comes Marriage was longlisted for the Chautauqua Prize and a finalist for the Southern California Independent Booksellers’ Award.
Huda currently resides in California with her husband and three children.
Huda Al-Marashi’s Website
“A Birthday at the Cemetery” Huda’s essay published in 2020 in The New York Times
Pete discusses the chill-inducing ending of “A Birthday at the Cemetery” on Episode 16
Huda reads “An Index of Small Stings,” Oct. 2, 2020, as part of “Voices of California”
Buy Huda’s Wonderful Book Here-First Comes Marriage: My Not-So-Typical American Love Story
Buzzfeed Video Features Huda Discussing Debunking Stereotypes about Arranged Marriages
Authors/Books Mentioned and Allusions Referenced During the Episode:
Edward Said's Orientalism
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz, Writer of The Cairo Trilogy
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Episode 225 with Andrés N Ordorica, Author of How We Named the Stars and Generous Creator of Poignant, Resonant "Love and Loss" Scenes and Utterly Memorable Characters
Episode 224 with Peter Coviello, Enthusiastic and Deeply Knowledgeable Critic and Celebrator of Moving Art, and Author of the Essay Collection, Is There God After Prince
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Episode 222 with Andrew Leland, Author of The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight, and Masterful Chronicler of His and Other Journeys with Blindness and its Intersections with our World
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