Mizna+RAWIFest 2023

With a keynote address from Hala Alyan, join us for a weekend of poetry, dance, and art celebrating SWANA artists and beyond!

RAWI Craft Talk 1: An Exploration of Kinships with the Olive Tree

RAWI is holding a craft series! The first of our talks comes from Layla Feghali of River Rose Re-Membrance and the SWANA ancestral project.

Established in 1993, RAWI is a national organization that provides mentoring, community, and support for Arab American writers and those with roots in the Arabic speaking world and diaspora. We are a non-profit 501(c)(3) literary organization dedicated to supporting and disseminating creative writing and scholarly writing by Arab/SWANA (Southwest Asian and North African) Americans and those from the Arabic speaking world–which often means creating space and highlighting voices and people threatened by erasure. We put on readings, panels, workshops, roundtables, conferences, and festivals that emphasize inclusivity.

The cover of the paperback of Zeyn Joukhadar's debut novel The Map of Salt and Stars.

Though the formula of a query letter is fairly straightforward, a good query letter not only sums up the premise, characters, and central obstacles of a novel, but also hooks the reader while communicating the category, genre, and tone of the book. Nailing the query letter will also serve you down the road, since these are the same skills involved in writing jacket copy, for example, and in creating pitch materials for editors.


That all might seem obvious. What may be less obvious is how issues with your query letter can also tip you off to larger problems within a text, and for this reason writing your query letter early could actually help you with your revision process. When I used to critique query letters for #DVPit, I often found that the issues with queries turned out to be symptoms of underlying issues in a manuscript. A writer might have trouble laying out the book’s central problem because they haven’t quite worked out the protagonist’s goals, for example, or because of structural issues within a draft. Writing a query might help you realize you have some paring down to do, that the plot meanders, or that you aren’t yet clear on your characters’ voices. If you struggle to articulate why the story begins where it does or what, exactly, your hook is, your readers may struggle as well. Personally, I’ve often found that the most helpful 

 most difficult thing about query letters is that they push the writer to tell a would-be reader what the problem is, why it matters, and what complications lie just around the bend, and I know from experience that sometimes we need to articulate these things to someone else before we can get clear on them ourselves.


I learned to read for many of these issues via resources like QueryShark and breakdowns of other successful query letters for novels, so let’s go through the structure of a query letter by looking at my query for my debut novel 

[* Always address your query letter to a specific person.]

Please consider representing my [word count]-word novel, [TITLE].*

[* Next sentence or two: tell them why you’re querying them specifically. Did they ask for manuscripts similar to yours on their manuscript wishlist? Have they represented similar projects in the past, or some of your favorite authors? Did you chat with them at a conference? Ideally, you’ll be working closely with this person over many projects. Let them know that you chose to query them with care and intention, and that you’re prepared for a positive working relationship. How many agents to query at a time and in what order is a discussion for another day, but you should only be querying people you really want to work with. A bad agent, or one you don’t mesh with, is worse than no agent. Be clear about why you’re a good fit for each other.]

[TITLE] is the story of…. [describe the hook of your project here; what is the most interesting thing about it? How would you describe it in one sentence?]. It will appeal to fans of… [list a comparative title or two with similar themes and/or subject matter, ideally recent ones.]

[After the opening paragraph, write a two-paragraph summary of your book. The two paragraphs below are what I wrote for 

In the summer of 2011, Nour has lost not only her father, but New York City and the only home she's ever known. Nour's mother, a cartographer who creates unusual, hand-painted maps, vanishes into her work. Her grief deprives Nour of the one thing she loved nearly as much as her father—her parents’ fabulous tales of medieval mapmakers. Worse, the Syria Nour's parents knew is changing, and it isn’t long before protests and shelling rumble through the quiet Homs neighborhood Nour’s just starting to call home.

[This is the set up, the things that intrigue the reader and connect the reader to the character(s) you’ve introduced. The next paragraph should develop the hook, introduce the main story problem and stakes, and hint at further complications. Moreover, it should leave off with a sense of both the emotional development and concrete problems the characters will face. You’ll notice that these two paragraphs might sound similar to the book’s eventual jacket copy.]

When a shell destroys Nour’s house and almost takes her sister's life, her family is forced to choose: stay and risk more violence, or flee as refugees across seven countries of Southwest Asia and North Africa in search of safety—along the very route Nour’s fabled mapmakers took nine hundred years before in their quest to map the world.

[From there, jump right into your one paragraph bio. If you’re just starting out, it’s okay to say that this is your first novel and leave it at that, maybe adding a bit of info about where you are from or where you live, your day job if relevant to your book, or any info you think is important to include. If you have them, you can also include things like mentorships or fellowships, having attended a writing conference, or that you’ve published even a single short story or been long-listed for a prize. With fiction, the story blurb and the manuscript itself are what matter most; nonfiction is different, and credentials / previous publications / platform may be more important.]

Thank you for your time and consideration. Upon your request, I’d be more than happy to send you the completed manuscript. I look forward to hearing from you. *

[* Having a finished, polished manuscript is generally important for querying a debut novel. You never know—you may get a full request the very next day, so be ready to send it! I also suggest preparing several synopses of varying lengths beforehand for this same reason, in case one is requested along with a partial or full manuscript. And if the agent’s query instructions say to include a chapter or two with your query, don’t forget to include those according to the agent’s guidelines as well.]


[Your website where links to your work can be found]

Though the formula of a query letter is fairly straightforward, a good query letter not only sums up the premise, characters, and central obstacles of a novel, but also hooks the reader while communicating the category, genre, and tone of the book.

How to Write a Query Letter

Radius of Arab American Writers logo. Two concentric black semicircles, the outer one interrupted by a turquoise dot and the inner one by a turquoise moon, sit above the words Radius of Arab American Writers in all capital letters, the letters R-A-W-I in turquoise and the rest of the letters in black.

We, at the Radius of Arab American Writers (RAWI), want to express our support for Palestinian liberation, today and always.

We unequivocally condemn the Zionist state for its ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinian lands, its brutal military occupation that has affected the daily lives of Palestinians for decades, and for its ongoing military blockade on Gaza that, for over 15 years, has upheld inhumane conditions akin to an “open-air prison” according to 

We understand that – counter to the Western media’s portrayal that relies on racist, orientalist tropes of the 

 terrorist Arabs – the current situation in Palestine is a result of decades of 

We, further, condemn the mainstream US literary establishment’s cowardice in remaining silent about the ongoing occupation with which all US citizens are complicit. In a time when US and Israeli politicians are deploying genocidal rhetoric against Palestinians, it is our duty as a literary organization to fight for the dignity and justice of Palestinians, in both our actions and words.

We call on our allies to join us in affirming their commitments to Palestinian liberation, even and especially in difficult times like these when Palestinians are reminding us that decolonization is not a metaphor or abstraction, but is a real, tangible struggle that exceeds the limits of the neoliberal imagination. Our struggles are one and intertwined.

We are seeing the political repression that Palestinians and allies in the imperial core are enduring as they speak up and move for collective liberation. Speaking truth to power comes at a price and Palestine is no exception. Palestine Legal offers free advice on your constitutional rights, here: 

We would like to offer the following further resources for education and awareness on Palestine:

 is an excellent Palestinian-written resource, so is this list of 

Follow the Gaza Mutual Aid Collective on 

We also encourage donations and support to the following organizations:

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How to Write a Query Letter

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Mizna+RAWIFest 2023