
Coming of Age in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn | Aisha Abdel Gawad
07/31/23 • 53 min
Writing Between Two Moons: An Arab-American coming of age story set in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn during the “War on Terror”. Author Aisha Abdel Gawad sheds light on her experience writing the novel while balancing her work as a high-school teacher, capturing Bay Ridge’s unique community in her book, and her creative process.
Together, Mikey and Aisha reflect on the post-9/11 War on Terror, age of surveillance, and how this impacted the Arab-American community. Aisha also shares her advice for aspiring novelists and her must-reads for high-school students.
Aisha Abdel Gawad is a writer and high-school teacher. She won the 2015 Pushcart Prize for her short-story “Waking Luna”. After college, Aisha worked at the Arab American Association of New York in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Her debut novel, Between Two Moons, is a coming of age story set in Bay Ridge during the post-9/11 War on Terror.
Created & hosted by Mikey Muhanna
Edited by: Ramzi Ramman
Theme music by: Tarek Yamani https://www.instagram.com/tarek_yamani/
About Book Club:
Book Club is an interview series that calls for afikra community members, who are interested in literature and reading, to spend time reading along with the entire community. Books in Arabic and English will be announced on afikra’s reading list and the members will be asked to do the reading at home at their leisure and then join afikra for a conversation with the authors of those books. Every two weeks, a conversation will be held with an author to discuss their work and the book in particular. Individuals joining the call will be expected to have read the book and prepared questions regarding the context, motivation, and background stories. Following the interview, there is a moderated town-hall-style Q&A with questions coming from the live virtual audience on Zoom. Join the live audience: https://www.afikra.com/rsvp
Follow
Youtube - Instagram (@afikra_) - Facebook -Twitter
Support
About afikra:
afikra is a movement to convert passive interest in the Arab world to active intellectual curiosity. We aim to collectively reframe the dominant narrative of the region by exploring the histories and cultures of the region- past, present, and future - through conversations driven by curiosity.
Read more about us on afikra.com
FOLLOW & RATE THE EHKILI PODCAST:
» Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/afikra-book-club/id1646400790
» Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4khpLDZ77PINLupT7xEIv7
» Anghami: https://play.anghami.com/podcast/1044638525
THIS SERIES IS PART OF THE AFIKRA PODCAST NETWORK
Explore all episodes in this series: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfYG40bwRKl5xaTkBDrUKLCulvoCE8ubX&feature=shared
ABOUT AFIKRA
afikra | عفكرة is a movement to convert passive interest in the Arab world to active intellectual curiosity. We aim to collectively reframe the dominant narrative of the region by exploring the histories and cultures of the region – past, present and future – through conversations driven by curiosity.
📍 Local events in 40+ locations worldwide http://afikra.com/chapters
🎧 New podcasts + videos weekly http://afikra.com/podcasts
⚡ Become a member: https://www.afikra.com/membership
🔗 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/afikra_
🔗 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/afikra.official
🔗 Twitter:
Writing Between Two Moons: An Arab-American coming of age story set in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn during the “War on Terror”. Author Aisha Abdel Gawad sheds light on her experience writing the novel while balancing her work as a high-school teacher, capturing Bay Ridge’s unique community in her book, and her creative process.
Together, Mikey and Aisha reflect on the post-9/11 War on Terror, age of surveillance, and how this impacted the Arab-American community. Aisha also shares her advice for aspiring novelists and her must-reads for high-school students.
Aisha Abdel Gawad is a writer and high-school teacher. She won the 2015 Pushcart Prize for her short-story “Waking Luna”. After college, Aisha worked at the Arab American Association of New York in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Her debut novel, Between Two Moons, is a coming of age story set in Bay Ridge during the post-9/11 War on Terror.
Created & hosted by Mikey Muhanna
Edited by: Ramzi Ramman
Theme music by: Tarek Yamani https://www.instagram.com/tarek_yamani/
About Book Club:
Book Club is an interview series that calls for afikra community members, who are interested in literature and reading, to spend time reading along with the entire community. Books in Arabic and English will be announced on afikra’s reading list and the members will be asked to do the reading at home at their leisure and then join afikra for a conversation with the authors of those books. Every two weeks, a conversation will be held with an author to discuss their work and the book in particular. Individuals joining the call will be expected to have read the book and prepared questions regarding the context, motivation, and background stories. Following the interview, there is a moderated town-hall-style Q&A with questions coming from the live virtual audience on Zoom. Join the live audience: https://www.afikra.com/rsvp
Follow
Youtube - Instagram (@afikra_) - Facebook -Twitter
Support
About afikra:
afikra is a movement to convert passive interest in the Arab world to active intellectual curiosity. We aim to collectively reframe the dominant narrative of the region by exploring the histories and cultures of the region- past, present, and future - through conversations driven by curiosity.
Read more about us on afikra.com
FOLLOW & RATE THE EHKILI PODCAST:
» Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/afikra-book-club/id1646400790
» Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4khpLDZ77PINLupT7xEIv7
» Anghami: https://play.anghami.com/podcast/1044638525
THIS SERIES IS PART OF THE AFIKRA PODCAST NETWORK
Explore all episodes in this series: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfYG40bwRKl5xaTkBDrUKLCulvoCE8ubX&feature=shared
ABOUT AFIKRA
afikra | عفكرة is a movement to convert passive interest in the Arab world to active intellectual curiosity. We aim to collectively reframe the dominant narrative of the region by exploring the histories and cultures of the region – past, present and future – through conversations driven by curiosity.
📍 Local events in 40+ locations worldwide http://afikra.com/chapters
🎧 New podcasts + videos weekly http://afikra.com/podcasts
⚡ Become a member: https://www.afikra.com/membership
🔗 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/afikra_
🔗 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/afikra.official
🔗 Twitter:
Previous Episode

Belonging, Divorce & Summer in Egypt | Malaka Gharib
In this episode of Book Club, Malika Gharib joins us to share her musings on what it means to be an artist, the symbiotic relationship between journalism and comics, as well as what the 'American Dream' truly means. She reflects on growing up as a first-generation Filipino Egyptian, her changing relationship with her heritage, and how she uses her work as a medium to grapple with questions of identity, family, and lived experience. Malika Ghareeb, is a journalist, cartoonist, and graphic novelist. She's the artist and author of I Was Their American Dream which reflects on growing up first-generation Filipino-Egyptian, and which was the winner of the 2020 Arab American Book Award. By day Malika is the digital editor of the NPR podcast Life Kit. Her reporting work for NPR has been recognized with two Gracie Awards. Before joining NPR, she worked at the Malala Fund.
FOLLOW & RATE THE EHKILI PODCAST:
» Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/afikra-book-club/id1646400790
» Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4khpLDZ77PINLupT7xEIv7
» Anghami: https://play.anghami.com/podcast/1044638525
THIS SERIES IS PART OF THE AFIKRA PODCAST NETWORK
Explore all episodes in this series: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfYG40bwRKl5xaTkBDrUKLCulvoCE8ubX&feature=shared
ABOUT AFIKRA
afikra | عفكرة is a movement to convert passive interest in the Arab world to active intellectual curiosity. We aim to collectively reframe the dominant narrative of the region by exploring the histories and cultures of the region – past, present and future – through conversations driven by curiosity.
📍 Local events in 40+ locations worldwide http://afikra.com/chapters
🎧 New podcasts + videos weekly http://afikra.com/podcasts
⚡ Become a member: https://www.afikra.com/membership
🔗 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/afikra_
🔗 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/afikra.official
🔗 Twitter: https://twitter.com/afikra
Next Episode

Eyeliner: A Cultural History | Zahra Hankir
This episode was recorded on March 27th, 2024.
Zahra Hankir is a Lebanese-British journalist, editor and author. She was awarded a Jack R. Howard Fellowship to attend the Columbia Journalism School and holds degrees in politics and Middle Eastern studies. Her first book "Our Women on the Ground" was a bestseller and won the Susan Koppelman award for best anthology in feminist studies. This second book "Eyeliner: A Cultural History" was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ pick and had starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal.
Connect with Zahra 👉 https://www.instagram.com/zahrahankir/?hl=en
Theme music: Peninsular, Tarek Yamani 🔊 https://spoti.fi/47I59ns
Hosted by:
Mikey Muhanna 👉 https://www.instagram.com/mikey_mu/?hl=en-gb
FOLLOW & RATE THE AFIKRA PODCAST:
» Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/afikra-book-club/id1646400790
» Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4khpLDZ77PINLupT7xEIv7
» Anghami: https://play.anghami.com/podcast/1044638525
THIS SERIES IS PART OF THE AFIKRA PODCAST NETWORK
Explore all episodes in this series: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfYG40bwRKl5xaTkBDrUKLCulvoCE8ubX&feature=shared
ABOUT AFIKRA
afikra | عفكرة is a movement to convert passive interest in the Arab world to active intellectual curiosity. We aim to collectively reframe the dominant narrative of the region by exploring the histories and cultures of the region – past, present and future – through conversations driven by curiosity.
📍 Local events in 40+ locations worldwide http://afikra.com/chapters
🎧 New podcasts + videos weekly http://afikra.com/podcasts
⚡ Become a member: https://www.afikra.com/membership
🔗 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/afikra_
🔗 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/afikra.official
🔗 Twitter: https://twitter.com/afikra
FOLLOW & RATE THE EHKILI PODCAST:
» Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/afikra-book-club/id1646400790
» Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4khpLDZ77PINLupT7xEIv7
» Anghami: https://play.anghami.com/podcast/1044638525
THIS SERIES IS PART OF THE AFIKRA PODCAST NETWORK
Explore all episodes in this series: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfYG40bwRKl5xaTkBDrUKLCulvoCE8ubX&feature=shared
ABOUT AFIKRA
afikra | عفكرة is a movement to convert passive interest in the Arab world to active intellectual curiosity. We aim to collectively reframe the dominant narrative of the region by exploring the histories and cultures of the region – past, present and future – through conversations driven by curiosity.
📍 Local events in 40+ locations worldwide http://afikra.com/chapters
🎧 New podcasts + videos weekly http://afikra.com/podcasts
⚡ Become a member: https://www.afikra.com/membership
🔗 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/afikra_
🔗 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/afikra.official
🔗 Twitter: https://twitter.com/afikra
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